Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (FALMOUTH) BILL

Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL AVIATION

Long-Distance Flights (Safety Precautions)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Civil Aviation what international arrangements there are for facilities covering long-distance flights over barren territory, having in mind the recent air accident in the Sahara.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (Mr. R. Maudling): It is the responsibility of the sovereign state concerned to provide adequate navigational aids and facilities for search and rescue within its territory. All these facilities are planned and agreed internationally, and are reviewed at Regional Meetings of the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

Mr. Dodds: In view of the great suffering of the passengers and crew of a Hermes aircraft that had to land in the Sahara, will any representations be made to this international body in an effort to see that in future helicopters will be much more readily available?

Mr. Maudling: As I think the hon. Member knows, this particular accident is being investigated by the Chief Inspector of Accidents. I think it would be wrong of me to make any sort of statement in advance of the receipt of his report, but certainly the point that

the hon. Member has made will be considered.

Air Commodore Harvey: Will my hon. Friend undertake to make a statement to the House when the inquiry is completed, because there is considerable concern that the aircraft was 1,300 miles off its course? Will he do that at the earliest opportunity?

Mr. Maudling: I shall certainly raise that matter with my right hon. Friend when the report is received.

Mr. Mikardo: Do the terms of reference of the inquiry to be carried out by the Chief Inspector include the question of rescue facilities available, or are they concerned only with the causes of the accident?

Mr. Maudling: I am afraid that I was not accurate in my reply to the first supplementary question. The inquiry is, of course, carried out by the French authorities, but the Chief Inspector, or one of his representatives, will be present as an observer for this country. The responsibility for the inquiry as to the cause of the accident, like the responsibility for rescue, rests with the State in whose territory the crash takes place.

Mr. Rankin: What reserve supplies of food and water are carried in aircraft on flights of this type?

Mr. Maudling: I am afraid I should want notice of a question like that.

South Bank Site (Helicopters)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Civil Aviation how far the recent helicopter flight over the South Bank site has demonstrated that the site is technically in a suitable position for use as a helicopter passenger station.

Mr. Maudling: The flight helped to confirm that the site is technically suitable, but there are, of course, other considerations to be taken into account in selecting an airstop.

Mr. Dodds: Whatever the considerations, will the responsible authorities endeavour to come to some finality, because helicopters will be the travel of the future, and it is necessary to get the South Bank site going to encourage other local authorities to provide sites?

Mr. Maudling: I am certainly aware of the great importance of the development of the helicopter. We are also aware that an early decision is desirable. However, I think it would be misleading the public if the impression were given that the regular operation of helicopters to a point in the Metropolitan area is likely to be possible in the very near future.

Backward-Facing Seats

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Civil Aviation whether, for the better protection of passengers, he will now require the installation of backward-facing seats in aircraft.

Mr. Maudling: The full benefit from the installation of backward-facing seats can be obtained only if the seats and their attachments are strengthened to withstand the deceleration forces encountered at the time of a crash. Such strengthening involves an addition to the weight of the aircraft with corresponding economic penalties. These practical problems are being studied.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: But has not experience shown backward-facing seats to be a help in saving life in the event of a crash, and has not the time now come when, despite the economic considerations referred to by the hon. Gentleman, steps now should be taken to ensure the maximum possible protection against death in case of accident?

Mr. Maudling: It is not merely an economic matter. I agree that there are advantages in backward-facing seats, but it is also a technical matter, and technical experts themselves would not give an unanimous and clear opinion on the relative merits of backward-facing seats and a strengthened and improved form of forward-facing seats. However, I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that my right hon. Friend is very much aware of the great importance of maintaining the highest possible safety factor in civil aviation, particularly in view of the great improvements in safety in civil aviation that have already taken place.

Scotland

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Civil Aviation whether the application recently made by a private Scottish

company to operate air services in Scotland is, under his regulations, required to be considered initially by the Air Transport Advisory Council.

Mr. Maudling: The future organisation for air services in Scotland presents a special case and my right hon. Friend does not at present contemplate that it should be dealt with by application through the Air Transport Advisory Council in the ordinary way.

Mr. Beswick: Is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that under the new policy this will be a special case; and does he mean to say that in precisely these more important and controversial cases the protection which the Advisory Council is alleged to provide will not in fact be given?

Mr. Maudling: What I said was that special considerations apply in the case of Scotland. In matters like this the House always recognises that special considerations apply in the case of Scotland. There is however a very great difference between internal services, where it is a question of the possibility of superseding existing services, and external services, where it is merely a question of new services or new types of service.

Mr. Rankin: Will the Minister bear in mind that the public Corporation has met, in the most excellent fashion, every demand made upon it in Scotland to date for civil air transport?

Mr. Maudling: My right hon. Friend will certainly bear all relevant considerations in mind.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that the nationalised Corporations are doing nothing of the kind, and that there is a large area of Scotland which is entirely free from any form of air service which we used to have under private enterprise?

Mr. Maudling: I think that was covered by my previous answer.

Mr. Woodburn: Would the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend be careful not to interfere with the Scottish services until he makes quite sure that it is not disturbing the well-balanced arrangements where aircraft serve the public for civil aviation purposes, and also for the Highlands Health Service and many other public utilities?

Mr. Maudling: My right hon. Friend will certainly not make any change until he is convinced that such a change is in the general public interest.

Private Services

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Civil Aviation how many routes have been allocated to private air operators over the past three years; and in how many cases have the services not been started, or have been started and since terminated.

Mr. Maudling: Over the past three years, 226 applications for associate agreements involving 148 routes have been provisionally approved. Of the services covered by these applications, 90 were never started and 15 were terminated before the expiration of the period for which the services were approved.

Mr. Beswick: In view of the number of apparently irresponsible applications, can the hon. Gentleman say whether any penalty attaches to those operators who make applications for licences, are granted the licences, and do not fulfil them?

Mr. Maudling: The majority of these applications which were made and subsequently not completed took place during the tenure of office of the previous Government; and in fact during the tenure of office of the hon. Gentleman asking the Question. This is one of the reasons why my right hon. Friend is considering an alteration in the terms of reference of the Air Transport Advisory Council.

Mr. Beswick: Does the hon. Gentleman not realise that those applications were for minor services; that under the new policy these new services will be very important and likely to damage the forward planning of the Corporation; and in these new circumstances does he not think it is essential to have some penalty on irresponsible applicants?

Mr. Maudling: The new policy is to be governed by the new terms of reference of the Air Transport Advisory Council.

Mr. Mikardo: What is the use of reconstituting and strengthening the Advisory Council and giving it new terms of reference, and then by-passing it in respect of what ought to be a very important part of its functions?

Freight and Mail Rates

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Civil Aviation to what extent it is the practice of the airways Corporations to consult with him in regard to any proposal for a change in freight rates or mail-carrying rates.

Mr. Maudling: It is the normal practice of both Corporations to consult my right hon. Friend about proposals for changes in freight or mail rates.

Mr. Beswick: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say whether there have been any consultations about the changes in mail rates; and will he undertake to try to end the anomalous position under whch the short-haul operator is paid less than the long-haul operator?

Mr. Maudling: The final decision on mail rates does not rest with my right hon. Friend, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are well aware of the importance of this to the Corporations, and we do keep in very close touch with the other authorities concerned.

Mr. Beswick: That is not quite good enough. Is the Parliamentary Secretary following on the good work of his predecessor in this matter?

Mr. Maudling: I should be delighted to follow on any of the good work of my predecessor.

Germany (British Traffic Rights)

Mr. Russell: asked the Minister of Civil Aviation what traffic rights exist for British airlines within the American zone of Germany.

Mr. Maudling: B.E.A. have no traffic rights on sectors wholly within the American zone of Germany. B.E.A. have full commercial traffic rights at Frankfurt for services to London and Brussels and at Munich for services to Dusseldorf and London.

Mr. Russell: Is it not a fact that the airlines of certain other foreign countries have traffic rights in the American zone; and if so, is it not rather extraordinary that we have not?

Mr. Mikardo: It is because we are their allies.

Mr. Maudling: The whole question of who is to have traffic rights within


Germany is settled by a tripartite body on which the United Kingdom Government and the American and French Governments are represented. My right hon. Friend is satisfied that United Kingdom operators are receiving their fair share of operating rights in this respect.

Mr. Russell: asked the Minister of Civil Aviation why no traffic rights exist for British European Airways between Frankfurt and Munich.

Mr. Maudling: I understand that the Tripartite Civil Aviation Board, representing the Allied High Commission in Germany, was unable to grant British European Airways' application for traffic rights between Frankfurt and Munich, because there are already five airlines operating between these points who provide ample capacity for local travel requirements.

UNITED NATIONS (CHINA)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will now take further action to provide for the representation of the Central Peoples' Government of China in the United Nations organisation.

The Minister of State (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): I would refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the replies given by my right hon. Friend to similar Questions asked by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) on 18th June.

Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister not realise that the time has gone for relying upon technicalities in this fundamental matter which affects the lives of millions of people; and will he undertake to do everything possible to see that as many nations as possible are represented in the United Nations organisation?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not agree that the war in Korea or the operations in Korea are technicalities. I think that when an armistice is concluded there we may hope to make some progress over this difficult matter.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Sydney Silverman.

Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister not realize—

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Sydney Silverman.

Mr. Hughes: On a point of order—

Mr. Speaker: I understood there was a reference in the answer to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman).

Mr. Hughes: On a point of order. The Minister, perhaps unwittingly, has misrepresented me in his answer. He replied that I had said or implied that the war in Korea was a technicality. I did not mention the war in Korea. Far be it from me to suggest that it is a technicality.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order. Mr. Sydney Silverman.

Mr. S. Silverman: Will the Minister bear in mind that since the answer to which he referred only made the point that nothing could be done until the war in Korea was over and implied that something might be done when that occurred, many Members of the House of Commons and the other place have had the advantage of hearing a speech by the American Secretary of State, in which he said that any discussion of the recognition of the Chinese Government or its admission to the United Nations was purely academic, and that he could see no conditions in the foreseeable circumstances in which it would be anything else?

Mr. Lloyd: That statement of policy seems to support what I said earlier. I certainly did not mean to suggest that the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) was suggesting that the operations in Korea were a technicality. What he did suggest was that the present situation was a technical situation causing delay in considering this matter, and what I am pointing out is that the condition precedent to making progress over this matter, which is a difficult matter, is an armistice in Korea.

Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the presence in the field of nearly one million Chinese troops in action against United Nations' Forces is hardly a very good qualification for representation at U.N.O.?

Mr. Lloyd: I entirely agree.

Mr. Silverman: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not realise that there is a most fundamental difference


between saying that this is a matter to which we could agree once the present hostilities were over and saying that this is a matter to which we could not agree in any foreseeable circumstances; and in view of that deep discrepancy between the policy of this country and the policy of the United States on this most important matter, will he not consider whether any step ought not to be taken in good time to reconcile those differences, or, if not, to put our point of view to the opinon of the other members of the United Nations, or to the International Court?

Mr. Lloyd: I think our view is perfectly clear, and it is the view of the Government which preceded us. There is a difference of view on the part of other Governments, but it seems to me that it is hypothetical until we get the essential condition precedent fulfilled, which is an armistice in Korea.

Oral Answers to Questions — KOREA

Truce Talks

Mr. Cocks: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that the negotiations for an armistice in Korea have now been proceeding for nearly a year and have now apparently reached a deadlock, he will consider proposing the summoning of a special meeting of the Assembly of the United Nations to consider the situation.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir. While the armistice talks are still in progress and the possibility of resolving the deadlock that has arisen there exists, I do not consider that the summoning of a special session of the United Nations General Assembly would be necessary or desirable.

Mr. Cocks: Are there not many difficult and intractable subjects, such as the exchange of prisoners, the position of Syngman Rhee, the political direction of the war and the possibility of establishing an honourable peace, which might be discussed with beneficial results by an early meeting of the Assembly?

Mr. Lloyd: My experience of these meetings of the General Assembly is that opportunity is taken to use that body as a forum for propaganda and, as far as the armistice proceedings are concerned, I

think that such a proceeding would cause delay.

Mr. Shinwell: May I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether the United Nations ever discuss the war in Korea and its implication and possible repercussions?

Mr. Lloyd: At the last meeting of the General Assembly we were very anxious that while the armistice negotiations were continuing the General Assembly should not discuss the matter, because we were certain that if they did discuss the matter in the way that other matters had been discussed it would raise tempers on both sides and make an armistice more difficult.

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will take steps to ensure that Great Britain shall become immediately represented in the truce talks now taking place in Korea.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I would refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the statement which I made to the House yesterday.

Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister agree that the events of the last week have stressed the importance of the British point of view being expressed and implemented in these talks?

Mr. Lloyd: As I tried to say to the House yesterday, I do not think that the alteration of our representation on the armistice delegation will make any difference at all. I think that these talks are being very competently handled now.

Mr. Fernyhough: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise that those who have sons and husbands who are prisoners in Korea and those who have sons and husbands who are fighting in Korea would feel that the best interests of these men were looked after if we were directly represented at these talks?

Mr. Lloyd: That is a matter which I should have thought most certainly ought to have been borne in mind when this delegation was set up when our predecessors had responsibility, but I do not feel that this is the appropriate time for a change in the delegation; but the fact which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned is certainly one to be borne in mind.

Mrs. Mann: Are we to understand that the war in Korea is now continuing on the question of the repatriation of prisoners? Is that a sufficient reason to continue the war in Korea? Cannot we get an armistice and allow this question of repatriation to stand over?

Mr. Lloyd: We would be very willing to do that, but one thing which we are not going to agree to do is forcibly to send people back to a Communist country.

Prisoners-of-War (Screening)

Mr. Cocks: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that public anxiety in this country and elsewhere would be greatly relieved if a decision were taken to re-screen the prisoners in Korea by an impartial international commission, whether such action was agreeable to the Communist delegates at Panmunjom or not, thereby establishing a principle calculated to impress the non-Communist world; and what steps he is taking to try to get this done.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: As I informed the hon. Gentleman on 25th June, this suggestion has been put forward and has been discussed with interested Governments. The most important thing now is to improve the prospects of achieving an armistice, and I am doubtful whether any re-screening would achieve this unless both sides agreed beforehand to abide by the results.

Mr. Cocks: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not agree that if this decision were taken the Communist negotiators would no longer be able to describe the screening of prisoners as a fraud, and will he say how far the discussions he has just mentioned have gone?

Mr. Lloyd: I quite agree that the advantage of a re-screening now would be to deprive the Chinese Government of that propaganda point. On the other hand, I am not at all satisfied myself that impartial re-screening would in fact assist the armistice. I think that a formula on a rather different line has to be sought.

Sir W. Smithers: Will my right hon. and learned Friend tell the Opposition in

no uncertain terms that it is quite impossible to play lawn tennis with a man who will not send the ball back?

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Minister aware that there is a strong feeling amongst Scottish soldiers in Korea that they should be screened and have an opportunity of being repatriated to their own country?

Mr. Lloyd: All I can say is that I found absolutely no trace of any such feeling.

China (Indian Delegation)

Mr. Cocks: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to the report of the Indian delegation which has recently visited China, which says that the delegation gained the impression that the Chinese Government and people were weary of the Korean war and might make peace if a face-saving formula were put forward by a neutral nation; and whether he will investigate the possibility of action along such lines.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Yes, Sir. In consultation with other interested Governments, we are urgently trying to find a formula which would break the present deadlock at Panmunjom.

Mr. Cocks: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind the fact that India and China have been on terms of friendship for 1,000 years, and that there is no Power in Asia so capable of influencing China as India and the spiritual forces she represents?

Mr. Lloyd: I can appreciate what the hon. Gentleman has said, and that is certainly a factor which Her Majesty's Government are bearing in mind. There is, however, one other matter which arises out of this Question. He refers to a face-saving formula, and if a formula is in fact to save faces it is probably not best described in that manner.

Destroyed Power Stations (Value)

Mr. Fernyhough: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the estimated value of the installations destroyed in the raid on Korean power stations on 23rd June.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The cost of the original construction of these plants is estimated at about 200 million United States dollars. I have no information as to the value of the parts destroyed.

Mr. Fernyhough: In view of the fact that we are pledged to a policy of helping to rehabilitate and reconstruct Korea, can the right hon. and learned Gentleman now say how much greater the financial contribution of this country will be for that purpose in view of the damage caused by this raid about which we were not informed?

Mr. Lloyd: Of course, attacks on military targets do involve certain costs, but the point is to try and maintain the security of the United Nations troops.

Mr. J. Hynd: Would the Minister give the comparable cash figure to represent the value of lives lost had these bombs been dropped on Chinese troops instead of on bricks and mortar?

Mr. Nally: Could the right hon. and learned Gentleman say what was the value of these power stations at the time when the Japanese built most of them? Could he further say what is the estimated present value of the installations in providing radar and other services for planes which may potentially be used against United Nations troops in the field?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that that is a calculation which could be made in terms of money, but it is relevant to consider it in terms of human life.

Air Raids (Civil Population)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what estimate of the numbers of the civilian population living in the area of the Korean power stations was taken before the air raids were ordered.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Account was taken of this factor before the attacks were made. The plants attacked were in maintainous country removed from any large centres of population.

Mr. Hughes: Could the Minister assure us that the fate of the civilian population is always taken into account in these raids, and is he not aware that recently a colleague of his, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of

Defence, defended large-scale bombing of civilians on the ground that it was not practicable to give them any warning?

Mr. Lloyd: I am quite certain that the possible damage to the civilian population is always considered in deciding whether a target should be taken on or not.

Sir I. Moore: Can my hon. Friend say how many people were living in South Korea before they were wantonly attacked by the North Korean Communists?

U.N. Broadcasts

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the present arrangements for broadcasts on behalf of the United Nations to China and North Korea, respectively; and how the content of these broadcasts is decided.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I understand that American transmitters in various places carry news programmes prepared by the staff of the United Nations in the Chinese and Korean languages.

Mr. Grimond: Is there no continuous liaison between the various broadcasting stations, and if that is the case, would it not be desirable that there should be such liaison in view of the great importance of getting across to the people of China and North Korea the reasons why we are fighting in Korea and emphasising that we bear them no ill will?

Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman's question related to broadcasts on behalf of the United Nations. I was dealing with broadcasts which are under the supervision of the United Nations Secretariat at the United Nations headquarters.

Mr. Profumo: Can my right hon. and learned Friend indicate to us what proportion of the Chinese and North Korean populations are in possession of high-powered wireless receiving sets?

Mr. Lloyd: No. Sir.

Bacteriological Warfare (Allegation)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will ascertain from the International Red Cross organisation whether any reply has yet been received by them from the Chinese Government in Pekin to their


offer made in March last to conduct an investigation into the charges of bacteriological warfare.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The International Committee of the Red Cross announced on 29th April that no reply had been received from the Chinese authorities to their message of 12th March. There has been no further development since that date.

Mr. Henderson: Is it not significant that, after having launched a world wide propaganda campaign alleging this monstrous crime against the Allied Forces in Korea, the Chinese Government have refused to allow impartial investigation, and that only yesterday the Soviet Government's representative at the Security Council announced that he was going to veto the proposal for independent Red Cross investigation?

Mr. Lloyd: I quite agree. I think both the actions to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has referred are lamentable.

Oral Answers to Questions — EGYPT AND SUDAN

Cairo Riots (British Claims)

Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any compensation has yet been paid by the Egyptian Government in respect of loss of life, loss of employment and damage to property, sustained by British subjects in Cairo during the riots which took place last January.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Anthony Nutting): A number of British firms who suffered damage during the Cairo riots have received loans from the Egyptian Government. These loans are subject to the final assessment of damage by the Egyptian courts and do not represent compensation. Otherwise the position remains similar to that outlined in the answer given by my right hon. and learned Friend to my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Sir D. Savory) on 7th May. We have since then made further representations on these points to the former Egyptian Government and will continue to do so to the new Government.

Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: Does my hon. Friend realise that there is a very big

feeling on this issue not only among the relatives of those concerned but also among a much wider public, and will he state what further steps Her Majesty's Government intend to take to enforce the payment of compensation for these very dastardly outrages?

Mr. Nutting: We cannot enforce compensation from another Government, but I assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to make representations to the new Egyptian Government. We have already put in a statement of claim in respect of material damage done during the riots, and, in addition, Her Majesty's Embassy in Cairo have asked for payments of £200,000 and 100,000 Canadian dollars to the dependents of those killed and injured during the raids. We shall continue to press those claims.

Mr. Ernest Davies: Would the Joint Under-Secretary inform his hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury of the fact that we cannot enforce compensation because he took a very different view in regard to Albania?

Sir D. Savory: Has my hon. Friend taken no further action with regard to obtaining compensation for those civil servants who have been dismissed in breach of contract and are now in this country living in very unfortunate and depressing circumstances?

Mr. Nutting: A certain amount of compensation has been paid to those people who were employed by the Egyptian Government, namely, three months salary in lieu of notice, but we do not consider that that compensation has been adequate and we are still pressing their case. With regard to teachers employed in private schools—not Government schools—legal action has already been started, and Her Majesty's Embassy will give all the necessary help.

King Farouk (Sudanese Title)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on the representations he has made regarding the recognition by the Greek and other Governments of King Farouk of Egypt as the King of the Sudan.

Mr. Nutting: Her Majesty's Government's views on the question of King Farouk's title are well known to the


House. Recognition of a change in the title involves in the eyes of many Sudanese recognition of a change in the status of the Sudan and we are pledged not to recognise such a change without consultation with the Sudanese. This point of view has been put strongly to all the Governments concerned. I therefore regret the action taken by the Governments which have recognised the new title without waiting to hear what the Sudanese had to say. I am glad at least that some of the Governments have made it plain that recognition is not intended to have any political significance.

Mr. Henderson: Is it correct that there was an understanding between the countries associated with N.A.T.O., including Greece, that they should take no action which would embarass the present negotiations between the United Kingdom Government and the Egyptian Government?

Mr. Nutting: Such an understanding most certainly did exist.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Did I understand my hon. Friend to say that this was a question of consultation only with the Sudanese people? Should not it be "agreement" rather than "consultation?"

Mr. Nutting: By "consultation" we most certainly implied "agreement."

Sir T. Moore: And willing agreement.

Mr. Driberg: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the Foreign Secretary took the opportunity of discussing this matter recently with Mr. Acheson and, if so, could he say whether the State Department now appreciate the Sudanese point of view?

Mr. Nutting: This subject was discussed between my right hon. Friend and the United States Secretary of State. The United States Government have consistently supported Her Majesty's Government in this matter.

Relations

Mr. Philips Price: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now make a statement on the discussions that have been going on between the Umma Party in the Sudan and the Government of Egypt on the question of Sudan's relations with Egypt.

Mr. Nutting: Although they welcomed this exchange of views, Her Majesty's Government were not a party to the discussions between the Egyptian Government and representatives of Sayed Abdel Rahman E1 Mandi. I am not in a position to give the House any information as to their outcome. Her Majesty's Government are glad, however, to see any direct contact between the Egyptian Government and the Sudanese which may lead to a better understanding.

Mr. Price: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the recent change of Prime Ministers in Egypt has any connection with the return of the Umma Party to the Sudan and the consequent developments there?

Mr. Nutting: I should prefer not to be drawn into commenting on the new Egyptian Government at so early a stage in their development.

ICELAND (FISHING DISPUTE)

Mr. Hoy: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what reply he has received from the Government of Iceland in reply to his last note concerning the extension of their territorial waters; and what further action he is taking to safeguard our position.

Mr. Nutting: No reply has yet been received to the Note addressed to the Icelandic Government on 18th June. I should prefer to await the Icelandic reply before making any further statement.

Mr. Hoy: In view of the long delay in replying to the last Note which was sent, could the Under-Secretary state whether any consideration has been given to the suggestion that an international conference might be held to deal with this problem?

Mr. Nutting: That question is most certainly under consideration by Her Majesty's Government, but I would ask the House not to draw me into further comment upon this matter until we have received a reply from the Icelandic Government.

Mr. Woodburn: Could not the Foreign Office give a delicate hint to Iceland that good will is a thing that works on both


sides? Fishermen are getting very concerned about the sever restrictions which have been placed on their opportunities to earn a livelihood.

Mr. Nutting: The Foreign Office have given more than a delicate hint to the Icelandic Government to that effect, as has already been stated by my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State.

FORMOSA (CHINESE NATIONALIST FORCES)

Mr. Philips Price: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps are being taken to make it clear to the Government of the United States of America that public opinion in this country will not tolerate the support of any military action which may result from the activities of the Chinese National forces in Formosa.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: In his declaration of 27th June, 1950, President Truman ordered the United States Seventh Fleet to prevent any attack on Formosa. At the same time he called on the Chinese Nationlist authorities to cease all air and sea operations against the mainland of China. So far as Her Majesty's Government are aware, this "neutralisation" of Formosa remains the policy of the United States Government and it would therefore be unnecessary to take any steps such as those envisaged in this Question.

Mr. Price: In view of the serious situation that might arise through an action by the Nationalist forces in Korea, would the Minister of State continue to keep the United States Government—his opposite number—informed as to the state of public opinion in this country in regard to this matter?

Mr. Lloyd: I can only remind the hon. Gentleman of the statement made by the Prime Minister in the House on 26th February, when he said that few adventures could be less successful or fruitful than for Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to plunge on to the mainland.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman's attention been drawn to the statement made by Mr. Chiang Kai-shek yesterday, favouring the bombing of industries in China, and saying that he hoped the time would come when he would lead Formosans on

to the mainland against China? Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman dissociate himself from being allied with these plans?

Mr. Lloyd: I adhere to the form of words use by the Prime Minister which, I think meet the point of the hon. Gentleman.

MIDDLE EAST (AMBASSADORS' MEETING)

Mr. Renton: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement about the conference recently held in London of Her Majesty's ambassadors and ministers in Middle Eastern countries.

Mr. Nutting: I will, with permission, arrange for the text of the Press communiqu£ of 24th June, together with a list of those who attended the Conference, to be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
I would only add that my right hon. Friend regards these periodic meetings as of considerable value, not only because of the opportunity which they afford for reviewing and discussing at first-hand all developments affecting the policy of Her Majesty's Government, but also because they serve to demonstrate the importance which Her Majesty's Government continue to attach to the security, prosperity and independence of the Middle East.

Mr. Renton: Is my hon. Friend aware that this meeting provides encouraging evidence of the patience and skill with which the Foreign Secretary is improving our relations with the Middle East, as compared with a year ago?

Following is the communiqué:
The Conference of Her Majesty's Representatives in the Middle East closes this afternoon. It has given the Foreign Secretary the opportunity of exchanging views and information with the Heads of Mission attending, and the discussions have covered the whole field of problems affecting British policy in the Middle East. It has also been possible to give the Heads of Mission an up-to-date picture of Britain's overall position.
The present Conference, which is the third of its series, was summoned in accordance with what is now an established practice. It was not intended that the Conference should take any major policy decisions, and it has not done so.
At the closing session this afternoon, the Foreign Secretary is arranging for Mr. Acheson,


who has just arrived in London, to meet the British Representatives attending the Conference.

The following is a list of those attending the Conference:—


Her Majesty's Representatives at


Cairo.
Damascus.


Bagdad.
Jedda.


Ankara.
Amman.


Tel Aviv.
Tehran.


Beirut.



The Political Resident in the Persian Gulf.
The Head of the British Middle East Office.
Sir Robert Howe, Governor-General of the Sudan, being on leave in the United Kingdom, attended some of the meetings as an observer.
Sir Henry Knight (British representative on the Advisory Commission of the U.N.R.W.A.) also attended certain meetings.
Other Government Departments and the Chiefs-of-Staff were represented at appropriate meetings.

FOREIGN SERVICE (MISSING DIPLOMATS)

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on what date the appointments of Mr. Guy Burgess and Mr. Donald Maclean were officially terminated.

Mr. Nutting: The appointments of Mr. Guy Burgess and Mr. Donald Maclean were terminated on 1st June, 1952, with effect from 1st June, 1951, the date on which they were suspended from duty.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Can the hon. Gentleman explain the reason for this extraordinary delay of one year in finally deciding to dispense with the services of these two men?

Mr. Nutting: It is because the search for them was continuing. Indeed, the search is still continuing. But, having been absent without leave for a year, my right hon. Friend has considered that as a disciplinary measure their appointments should be terminated and that they should be dismissed the Service.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is it to be understood that disciplinary measures can be applied to absconding Government civil servants only after they have absconded for 12 months? Is that an essential qualification which must be taken into account before people are given the sack?

Mr. Nutting: No, Sir.

Sir H. Williams: Was not this information given about a fortnight ago in answer to one of my Questions?

Mr. Nally: In view of the fact that among large sections of the Press, during slack periods, it is becoming customary to fill in with stories about these two gentlemen, could the hon. Gentleman confirm or deny that it is a fact that prior to the departure of these two gentlemen they were in fact already being considered by the Foreign Office as not quite suitable for the offices which each of them held?

Mr. Nutting: That is another question and, what is more, it happened at a period when the present Government were not responsible. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could address his question to his right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison).

Mr. Nally: On a point of order. I am sorry, but this is a relevant question and I would ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker, whether, when a question is within the purview of a Minister and he has the information which would enable him to reply now—although he can refuse—he is in order in referring me to his predecessor and suggesting that I take advantage of the procedure which does exist in this House but which is not used, whereby one private Member can address a question to another?

Mr. Speaker: I understood the reference to be somewhat jocular in its tone.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: In view of the unsatisfactory reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter at the earliest possible moment on the Adjournment.

REFUGEES (INTERNATIONAL TRACING SERVICE)

Captain Ryder: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what organisation is to undertake the International Tracing Service formerly carried out by the International Refugee Organisation.

Mr. Nutting: The International Tracing Service is now supervised by the Allied High Commission for Germany. The question of its continuation under international supervision is now being discussed.

Captain Ryder: Would my hon. Friend bear in mind that those interested in refugees and displaced persons are very concerned that this valuable organisation should not go by default, and will he get his Department to keep a watch on it to see that it is maintained in efficiency?

Mr. Nutting: Most certainly. The Foreign Office very much hope we shall be able to continue this excellent organisation, whose records are of considerable use still to Belgium and Holland.

GERMANY (MILITARY SERVICE)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to what extent, in his official interviews with Dr. Adenauer on the German contribution to Western Defence, the question of Germans being allowed to appeal as conscientious objectors from military service, was discussed.

Mr. Nutting: This matter has not been discussed with Dr. Adenauer.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that during the last five years a large sum of British money has been spent on anti-militarist propaganda in Germany with the result that very many intelligent Germans are now conscientious objectors, and is it not time that the Government considered this matter in case these people are put into jail for being anti-militarists?

Mr. Nutting: Whatever money was spent by the previous Government in converting Germans to pacifism, Her Majesty's Government have now no responsibility for it. What is now in the contract is that this is a matter of internal German law.

Mr. J. Hynd: But is it not the case that the German Basic Law, which is the West German constitution, provides specifically that no German will be forced to serve in the military forces against his conscience?

Mr. Nutting: That is perfectly true. No one may be compelled against his conscience to perform war service as a combatant under Article 4 of the Basic Law, but that does not alter the fact that it is not a matter for which Her Majesty's Government have any responsibility.

OVERFISHING CONVENTION (RATIFICATIONS)

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the recently concluded pact to regulate fishing in the North Sea.

Mr. Nutting: There is no inter-governmental agreement to regulate fishing in the North Sea subsequent to the Convention signed at the International Over-fishing Conference held in London in 1946. I would refer the hon. Member to a written answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture on 29th May last. The situation has not changed since that date.

Mr. Grimond: Is it not the case that all the nations concerned have now ratified the 1946 agreement? If that is so, does that not mean that the agreement can now be put into force in some respects?

Mr. Nutting: I am informed that Spain has not yet ratified it and that that is the only ratification still outstanding. The position has not changed since the hon. Gentleman was given the previous reply.

SAN MARINO (WAR DAMAGE CLAIM)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make a statement on the amount of compensation offered to the Republic of San Marino in respect of damage caused in June, 1944, during aerial bombardment of the area.

Mr. Nutting: Yes, Sir. In 1944 the Republic of San Marino was bombed by units of the Desert Air Force and was fought over and finally occupied by Allied Forces. The Government of San Marino subsequently submitted a claim for compensation amounting to 732 million Italian lire, approximately £421,000 at the present rate of exchange. Her Majesty's Government have consistently repudiated any legal liability for the damage caused in San Marino on the grounds that the neutrality of the Republic had previously been violated by the German occupation. But out of consideration and sympathy for the sufferings and losses caused to the citizens


of the Republic through the use of their territory by the German Armed Forces, Her Majesty's Government offered, first in June, 1949, and on three subsequent occasions, an ex gratia payment of £26,000 in final settlement of any claims against Her Majesty's Government. The Government of San Marino have not hitherto felt able to accept this offer.

Mr. Dalton: Would it not be more appropriate if we were to send this claim to the West German Government?

Mr. Nutting: The Government of San Marino have already asked us to support a claim which they intend to make against the German Federal Government, but no such claim has yet been made. In any case, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, Her Majesty's Government are precluded by the Paris Agreement of 1946 from making on their own behalf or on behalf of anybody else claims for further reparations on Germany pending a definite settlement.

Mr. Dalton: Yes, but could the Government not use their good offices with Dr. Adenauer to get him to pay up in this case?

Mr. Nutting: No claim has been made. Therefore, no question of using our good offices with Dr. Adenauer can arise.

Mr. Driberg: Can the hon. Gentleman give a rough indication of the extent of the damage, since £26,000 is a very small sum? Is it not true that this offer expires this coming Saturday, and if that is so will the hon. Gentleman consider extending the time?

Mr. Nutting: It is the case that this offer expires on 3rd July, which is tomorrow. We have felt bound to set some time limit upon the acceptance of the offer by the San Marinese Government because it has been pending since June, 1949. Her Majesty's Government wish to discharge their obligations towards the San Marinese people in this matter, but we cannot go on indefinitely making this offer.

Mr. S. Silverman: Could the hon. Gentleman say whether it is a fact that in the claim by the Republic of San Marino it was stated that the Allied Forces were the first to violate the boundary of the country and whether there is

any evidence in support of that contention? Can he also say whether their claim against us is based upon that contention, and if those facts are not accepted by us, would it not be a suitable question to refer to some kind of international third party judgment.

Mr. Nutting: No, Sir. As regards the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary, the San Marinese Government have claimed that it was the Allied Forces who first violated their territory, but they have adduced no evidence whatsoever in support of that contention.

Mr. Driberg: Would the hon. Gentleman answer the first part of my supplementary question?

Sir H. Williams: Is it not a fact that the Government of San Marino are all Communists, and why should we finance the Communist cause?

Mr. Nutting: The Government of San Marino is dominated by the Communist Party, but nevertheless Her Majesty's Government feel that they should discharge their obligation to the San Marinese people.

Mr. Driberg: Would the hon. Gentleman be good enough to answer the first part of my original supplementary question?

Mr. Nutting: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. So far as I am aware, this sum will cover the extent of the damage caused.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF FOOD

Eggs (Black Market)

Miss Burton: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the widespread disapproval in the country concerning the black market in eggs; and what results have been obtained from the investigations ordered by his Department in the Midlands.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Charles Hill): My right hon. and gallant Friend is aware of substantial black market activity in eggs. Between 1st October, 1951, and 31st May, 1952, the number of convictions, mostly for large scale operations, was 186, eight of which were in the Midland area.

Miss Burton: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that his right hon. Friend recently said in the House that only 45 per cent. of the eggs produced in this country reached the egg grading scheme? Would he do something about this matter, so that everybody may have an equal share of eggs?

Dr. Hill: In giving that figure of 45 per cent. my right hon. Friend explained, as the hon. Lady will recall, that eggs from flocks under 25 in number can properly come on to the market free of control. However, my right hon. Friend is reexamining the whole scheme of egg control, and will take into account the point raised by the hon. Lady.

Mr. F. Harris: Would my hon. Friend not consider derationing eggs altogether?

Dr. Hill: The choice is between decontrol and the strengthening of enforcement.

Stocks

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Minister of Food the foods in which the country's stocks have decreased since 1st November, 1951; and how, in the light of existing financial policy, he expects food stocks at the end of 1952 to compare with the figures for the end of 1951.

Dr. Hill: For reasons of commercial prudence my right hon. and gallant Friend cannot make any statement about our present and prospective stocks of food.

Mr. Donnelly: Is the Minister not aware that that kind of verbal smokescreen makes it impossible for us to form any assessment of the balance-of-payments situation?

Dr. Hill: It is the same kind of adjectival smoke-screen as was put up by right hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Mr. H. Morrison: Does not the hon. Gentleman remember, as he surely does, that when that answer was given by Labour Ministers it was universally condemned by Conservative Members? What does he mean by coming to this House and giving the same answer as he and his hon. Friends condemned universally?

Dr. Hill: The reasons for secrecy about commercial stocks, as about emergency stockpiling, remain unaltered.

Mr. Shinwell: May we have a secret Session on this subject?

Home-grown Fruit

Mr. Renton: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that there is likely to be an exceptionally heavy crop of all kinds of home-grown fruit this year; and what steps he is taking to ensure the sale of this crop at prices which will offer a reasonable return to British growers.

Dr. Hill: My right hon. and gallant Friend is aware that a heavy crop is expected of some kinds of home-grown fruit. But as will be appreciated, reductions in imports of fruit pulp and soft fruits generally will afford a measure of protection for the home grower, and my right hon. and gallant Friend will do his utmost to ensure that sugar and tinplate allocations do not restrict unduly the purchases of jam manufacturers and canners.

Mr. Renton: Is my hon. Friend aware that this year, so far, in spite of the import cuts intended, enormous quantities of foreign fruit and vegetables have been dumped here, to the detriment of our home growers? Will he say what he is going to do over the rest of this year to ensure that the home producer shall have first place in the home market?

Dr. Hill: The position is that, strawberries apart, imports of fruit for this year will amount to about one-quarter of the imports of fruit last year. I would add that it is not within the power of my right hon. and gallant Friend to ensure the sale of more than the market can absorb at prices the consumer will pay.

Mrs. Castle: Is the hon. Gentleman expecting a bumper crop of raspberries?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Speaker: I do not see how any serious answer can be given.

Mr. Alport: Is it not a fact that one of the reasons for the depreciation of price that has taken place and which has seriously affected the soft fruit growers in this country is the very substantial imports of fruit pulp which took place under the previous Government?

Mrs. Mann: On a point of order—and this is a real point of order. Question No. 34 has managed to get on to the


Order Paper, although my own Question, which was exactly similar, was held off. Perhaps I ought to be able to get a supplementary question in.

Mr. Speaker: I did not see the hon. Lady's Question which was refused at the Table, but the refusal of a Question at the Table has never been considered a valid ground for asking a supplementary question.

Jam (Fruit Content)

Mr. Renton: asked the Minister of Food whether, in view of the exceptionally large quantity of home-grown fruit which will be available for canning during the coming season, he will permit canners and jam manufacturers to provide a larger fruit content in their products.

Dr. Hill: The relevant orders prescribe only the minimum weight content for tins of canned fruit and the minimum fruit content for jam.

Mr. Renton: Is my hon. Friend aware that the minimum sugar content at present prescribed by this Department is as low as can be arranged for purposes of preservation? Would it be possible to cut it down still lower?

Dr. Hill: The Question referred to the fruit content. The jam manufacturer is free to increase the fruit content above the minimum, provided he feels that a sale can be found at the higher price that would be necessary.

Mr. Mitchison: What is the rest of this jam?

Captain Duncan: My hon. Friend says it will be necessary to increase the price of jam which was above the minimum fruit content. Does he realise that, owing to the very heavy fruit crop which has brought about a reduction in the price of fruit, there would not necessarily be an increased price? Will he therefore increase the minimum fruit content?

Dr. Hill: My right hon. and gallant Friend is advised that to raise the minimum content, even taking into account the recent fall in prices, would of itself have the result of increasing the price of jam.

Mrs. Mann: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he has permitted an extra

5½d. per lb. to be charged for the improved sausage? Why does he refuse even ½d. or 1½d. for an improved pound of jam? Why does he continue to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel?

Dr. Hill: The connection between jam and sausage is indeed distant.

Feedingstuffs (Wholesale Licences)

Mr. W. G. Bennett: asked the Minister of Food to what extent it is the Government's policy to restrict the granting of wholesale dealers licences in animal feedingstuffs to firms dealing in that commodity prior to 1939.

Dr. Hill: Before 1939, wholesale trading in imported feedingstuffs was combined with direct importing. The Government is now the sole importer and, so long as this position continues, restriction to pre-1939 traders materially reduces the costs of distribution. Additional licences are granted in appropriate cases for trading in home-produced feedingstuffs.

Mr. Bennett: Is the Minister not aware that at the moment his Department are restricting licences although firms have the materials available and are able to help the trade? Is it not the policy of the Government to free trade where possible?

Dr. Hill: It is the Government's policy to depart from the 1939 position in this matter of licensing, as in the matter of pre-war datum usage allocations. In this case, there are immense practical difficulties.

ATOMIC ESPIONAGE (PRESS ARTICLES)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

45. Mr. WIGG: To ask the Prime Minister whether he has considered the substance of the newspaper articles recently written by Mr. Alan Moorehead, a former Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Defence, to which his attention has been drawn and what steps he has taken to satisfy himself that the publication of these articles does not involve a breach of the Official Secrets Act.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill): I will with permission, answer Question No. 45.
I am informed that it was decided during the last Administration, with the then Prime Minister's approval, to give an established author enough access to official material, within the limits permitted by official secrecy, to enable him to write an accurate account of events concerning atomic espionage. The text of the articles was examined by the Departments concerned and there is no question of any breach of the Official Secrets Act.

Mr. Shinwell: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that if any reference was made to the Ministry of Defence on this matter of disclosure for the purpose of authorship it was not referred to the Minister?

The Prime Minister: The initiation of this project took place before I had to assume the burden of responsibility for public affairs.

Mr. Shinwell: Yes, but is the right hon. Gentleman not a little surprised to find disclosures of this kind in the Press which were not submitted—at any rate the material of which was not submitted—to the Minister in order to ascertain his views about publication?

The Prime Minister: I really think that is not a matter which particularly affects the present Administration. We followed

the course which was being pursued, I think a beneficial course, a very right and proper course. I am by no means sure on the spur of the moment that the Minister of Defence, among other Departments, was not consulted in the final stages.

Mr. Shinwell: Then may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman the present Minister of Defence, since assuming office, was consulted about this matter?

The Prime Minister: I think I might have notice of that question.

Mr. Wigg: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these articles reveal detailed methods of interrogation by security officers, and that therefore they must be prejudicial to the interests of the State? Will he take steps to see that any future articles that are published do not reveal such details?

The Prime Minister: A great deal of material is published here and also abroad on these delicate matters, on disputable matters, and it was thought right by the late Administration—and we fully share their views—that a truthful and substantive account of what had taken place should be put out in the form and manner which has been described. I must say that in Alan Moorehead—who I understand was at one time publicity officer to the Ministry of Defence—one could hardly have had a more trustworthy author.

KOREA

Minister of Defence (Speech at Canada Club)

Mr. Shinwell: (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that certain matters were excluded from the report by the Minister of Defence and the Minister of State to Parliament and what steps he will take to lay the full facts before Parliament.

The Prime Minister: I will give the House the full facts at once. Last night Lord Alexander, speaking impromptu at what he took to be a private gathering of the Canada Club—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—hon. Members would like to hear the answer before interrupting, would they not?—according to the reports which I have received and with which Lord Alexander agrees, said that there were weaknesses in Korea one of which he did not like to mention in the House of Lords. When guests shouted out, "Why not?" he answered:
Because it is a thing I was asked not to mention as a matter of secrecy. I should be very much happier if General Van Fleet had a little more reserve in his own hands. I think that if the Chinese attempt a full-scale offensive they will penetrate the front to a depth of some miles in some places. But I believe owing to the efficiency of the Eighth Army and their fire-power they will be able to bring the offensive to a halt.
The word "secrecy" which Lord Alexander used on the spur of the moment was no doubt unfortunately chosen. What he intended to imply was that his remarks might be liable to be misconstrued if said in a public speech and not that they affected military security, which in my opinion they did not.
When preparing his statement for the House of Lords, Lord Alexander took the special precaution of referring the principal points in what he proposed to say to General Omar Bradley. The General replied that he would prefer that no public reference should be made as to the strength of the reserves but that he did not dissent from the statement as an expression of opinion. He thought that in its original form it might be misconstrued as implying a serious inadequacy of reserves. In making this point he said that naturally any commander would be happier to have larger reserves and to this extent the proposed statement was unexceptionable. In its original form

it might be interpreted as implying that there were virtually no reserves, which was too bleak a picture.
In consequence of this interchange, Lord Alexander omitted from his public speech in the House of Lords any reference to the reserves. But speaking as he thought to a private gathering, off the record—[Interruption.)—I am saying what he thought, not what happened—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] All right. I will say what he said. Speaking, as he thought, to a private gathering, off the record, he made the reference in the form I have read out to the House, namely,
I should be very much happier if General Van Fleet had a little more reserve in his own hands.
This statement seems to me perfectly harmless, and if it had been made in the House of Lords as part of Lord Alexander's official statement, it would not, I believe, have attracted undue attention. The circumstances of the occasion, the setting of the remark and the use of the word "secrecy," have invested the incident with an air of mystery and significance which can only be removed by a full statement such as I have made.
I may add that the mobile reserves of the Eighth Army in Korea have been substantially increased by the availability of the considerable forces which were used on Koje Island for the restoration of order in the prisoners-of-war camps there and, as Lord Alexander said in the House of Lords and repeated in other words at the dinner, which I have read:
I believe that a full-scale offensive by the enemy under present conditions can be held and that he will suffer terrific casualties. He may outmatch us in numbers of men, as he does considerably, but we are superior in firepower and mobility.
Finally, Sir, let me make my compliments to the Press of the United Kingdom which, on a mere request, on a simple request, that the matter should be considered off the record, without exception abstained from publication.

Mr. Shinwell: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, first, whether he is aware that the Press were present at this gathering and, therefore, it could not be regarded as a private function? Moreover, is he aware that before the Press were asked to regard the statement made by Lord Alexander as confidential, it had been cir-


culated even to the Tass Agency, as reported in the "Evening Standard" of this afternoon? Moreover, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Lord Alexander, when asked "Why not?" by voices at the function, said:
Because it is a thing I was asked not to mention as a matter of secrecy.
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether Lord Alexander was instructed by the Government not to mention this statement in his report to Parliament? [HON. MEMBERS: "How many more questions?"] All right; I will content myself with those two and will ask some more afterwards.

The Prime Minister: What was the first question?

Mr. Shinwell: That, no doubt, gives the right hon. Gentleman a little time to work out a reply. The first question I asked—I repeat it—was whether he was aware that the Press were present at this function—[An HON. MEMBER: "Including Tass."]—and that Lord Alexander must have known they were present, and that this was known to the chairman of the function, the High Commissioner for Canada. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of that?

The Prime Minister: Lord Alexander was not definitely aware that the Press were present. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] If hon. Members want me to answer the question, I will do so. [Interruption.] Do not show so much bias when the object is to reach the truth. Lord Alexander was not aware that the Press were present, but in Canada, where he has made a great many of these speeches to clubs all over Canada, often the Press have been present and he has said, "This part is off the record" and that has always been respected, as it has been respected by the British Press on this occasion.

Mr. Shinwell: Will the Prime Minister be good enough to reply to the question I put—whether he is aware that this was circulated, even to the Tass agency? Further, will he be good enough to say whether he regards it as satisfactory that a Minister can make a statement at what is, after all, a public function, with all sorts of people present, including the Press, which he has not made available to both Houses of Parliament?

The Prime Minister: The Minister may easily make an impromptu statement which upon consideration he would have phrased differently. As to the facts of this matter having been circulated to the Tass Agency, that seems to have lost some of its significance, as I have already circulated it to the House of Commons.

Mr. Shinwell: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether Lord Alexander, who did, apparently, quite honestly and conscientiously regard this matter as secret and confidential—as, indeed, he said—conveyed this information to the Prime Minister; and what did the Prime Minister instruct him to do?

The Prime Minister: I was not consulted. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Why should I be? I have never been consulted on details of every statement which is made—

Mr. Shinwell: This was a secret statement.

The Prime Minister: —but if he had asked me, I should have said, "Make it in the House of Lords. It can do no possible harm. It is true and thoroughly guarded by your other remarks." That is what I should have said.

Mr. Shinwell: I repeat the question, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would be good enough to give a straight answer.

The Prime Minister: I am dealing with the right hon. Gentleman on a perfectly fair and square level and giving full and clear answers. That he should suggest that I vary my answers between what is straight and what is not straight is worthy of his own mind and worthy only of his own mind.

Mr. Shinwell: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that we recognise that the reason he is losing his temper is that he is in a position of great difficulty from which he cannot extricate himself? Is he aware that he has accused hon. and right hon. Members on this side of lack of tact and that now, when he is asked about one of his Ministers "dropping a brick," he loses his temper? Whether the right hon. Gentleman regards it as impudent or not, he has got to give a straight and truthful answer to the House.

The Prime Minister: The Prime Minister rose—

Mr. Shinwell: Wait a minute.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Speaker: I think the heat outside is affecting this discussion, and I will ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen to keep any unnecessary heat out of their questions.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We really must conduct this matter in an orderly fashion. An answer has been given to a Private Notice Question. The business before the House is on that footing.

Mr. Shinwell: All that I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman—apparently I have to repeat it—is whether, in view of the fact, and it is a fact, that Lord Alexander regarded this statement as being of a private and confidential character—

The Prime Minister: Secret.

Mr. Shinwell: —and, indeed, secret, it was not desirable that he should consult the Prime Minister before making it to a public function.

The Prime Minister: I did not lose my temper at all. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I was only trying to do justice to the needlessly offensive character of the right hon. Gentleman's remark. I think it is a rather serious thing to suggest that another Member is not making a straight and truthful answer, because the alternative conclusion would be that he was making a crooked and false answer. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] Very well. I am delighted to find that that opinion is so readily accepted on the other side, because if I valued their opinion I might withdraw.
I am making a very full and clear answer on the whole of this matter. Naturally, I was not consulted, nor should I have been, on what, in my opinion, was such a harmless matter as the statement:
I should be very much happier if General Van Fleet had a little more reserve in his own hands.
If that statement had been made in any other context, it would not have attracted the slightest serious attention. That is the position. It is the context in which it was accidentally put that has caused an air of mystery and alarm. It is another

mare's nest which has been exploited by the other side. They are, of course, entitled to make what party capital they can out of it.

Mr. Attlee: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he does not realise the seriousness of the position in which two Ministers are sent out, come back and make a report to Parliament, and then, on the same evening, one of those Ministers gets up at a meeting and says, "Here is something I would not tell Parliament but I will tell 500 individuals here"? Does not that show great inexperience as to what the proper relations of a Minister are to Parliament?

The Prime Minister: I have already said that I think it would have been better if the statement had been made in another place. That would have been better, but there is no harm in the statement and no injury has been done to public security by the statement. I fully admit that the word "secrecy" was an unfortunate term to have applied in this particular instance and on this particular occasion.

Mr. Attlee: The right hon. Gentleman does not quite realise the point. The point is not whether it was secret or whether it was a matter of very great importance; but here we have a Minister who, after he and his colleague have reported to Parliament, goes out and says, "There are things I have been told I had better not say and while I will not report them to Parliament—to whom I am bound to report—I am prepared to tell them to a private gathering."

The Prime Minister: I think that is all dealt with in the full—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Of course, hon. Members say "No" and they can say it again—I think that was all dealt with in the very full, frank and careful report I have given to the House. I have said that I thought it would have been much better if this particular statement had been included in the speech which Lord Alexander delivered in another place. It would have been better; but it would have been perfectly harmless whether it was delivered at the dinner under what were thought to be off-the-record conditions—[Interruption]—what he thought to be off-the-record conditions; I am not blaming other people—or in the House of Lords. I cannot see that, if the remark itself is not of any importance or


significance, the fact that it was, so to speak, framed by an impromptu introduction of the word "secrecy" in any way alters the merits of the case.

Mr. Attlee: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the Minister owes some apology to Parliament when he goes out of his way to tell a private gathering that there are things he is prepared to tell them but which he has been forbidden to tell to Parliament?

The Prime Minister: What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by "forbidden to say to Parliament"?

Mr. Attlee: That is what Lord Alexander said.

The Prime Minister: He never used the word "forbidden."

Mr. Attlee: I am only going on Press reports. Lord Alexander said there was
one weakness he did not like to mention in the House of Lords"—
and presumably also he would not like it mentioned in the speech made by the Minister to the House of Commons. We have to remember that Lord Alexander was informing the House of Lords while the other Minister was informing this House as to what was the exact position of our troops in Korea. The Minister then said there was a matter he did not like to mention in the House of Lords. When asked why, he said:
Because it is a thing I was asked not to mention.
The Prime Minister says it is not a matter of secrecy; he says it is quite harmless but the fact is that by someone or other—we do not know by whom—he was asked to withhold this information from Members of both Houses. That may or may not have been right and there may have been sound reasons for it. What is not right is that a Minister who is responsible to Parliament should get up and say, "I was asked not to mention it to Parliament, but I am prepared to mention it outside to other people."

The Prime Minister: I do not at all deny that there is some substance in that statement, but what happened was that the view which was entertained by General Omar Bradley was not that the matter was secret in the sense of affect-

ing security, but that if it were stated in a very prominent public manner it might be misconstrued by the general public. [Interruption.] Hon. Members had better try to get the point. That is the point. Lord Alexander thought when he was speaking to the gathering—he was wrong in that matter—that he could say "This is off the record" and it would be off the record, as had often been his experience in Canada.
The result of that, of course, was undoubtedly unfortunate and I have said it was unfortunate. I have no doubt that Lord Alexander regrets that on the spur of the moment he was led to put in these words, "I did not say this in the House of Lords"—I am not quoting exactly—"because it is of a secret character." But that does not alter the fact that what he said was perfectly harmless and could have been said in the House of Lords. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] All right—it could have been said in the House of Lords and would have done no harm of any kind to the security and safety of the troops which, after all, is the important matter.

Mr. Attlee: Mr. Attlee rose—

Sir H. Williams: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask whether there is not a certain "raffle" fixed for 3.30 p.m.?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must really leave the matter to me. We have spent a long time over this and I should be glad if the House could come to a reasonable conclusion. Mr. Attlee.

Commander Donaldson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. All the questions in relation to this topic have been put from the Opposition. May I be allowed to catch your eye?

Mr. Speaker: I have it firmly in mind that it is customary to call the Leader of the Opposition when he rises to ask a Question. Mr. Attlee.

Mr. Attlee: Would it not have been better if the right hon. Gentleman, in explaining this matter to the House, had expressed some regret on behalf of the Ministers and the Government that they had, whether by inadvertence or not, treated both Houses of Parliament with disrespect in this matter?

The Prime Minister: I do not admit for a moment that there was any intentional disrespect of any kind intended to either House. On that I can give every assurance. But I did express regret when I used the words, "unfortunately chosen." It was no doubt unfortunate. That certainly is an expression of regret—"unfortunately chosen." That clearly is an essential part of the full statement which I made to the House upon this subject.

Commander Donaldson: I am grateful to be called, Sir, and I wish to ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that the dinner held last night was indeed and in fact a private dinner to which some members of the Press had been invited, that my noble Friend was not aware that the Press had been invited and that he asked the High Commissioner for Canada to ask the Press to use normal restraint in a matter of this kind?
I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is not aware that Lord Alexander has recently returned from his period as Governor-General of Canada, where such things are understood by the people and are understood by the Press? I ask him whether he is aware that these are the circumstances which supported my noble Friend in making the statement, and that he had no desire whatever to show disrespect to either House?

Mr. Carmichael: On a point of order. Would it be in order for you, Mr. Speaker, to ask the hon. and gallant Member to desist from his question and not embarrass the Government any more?

Mr. Speaker: It would not be in order for me to do that.

The Prime Minister: The Prime Minister rose—

Mr. Wigg: On a point of order. The hon. and gallant Member for Roxburgh and Selkirk (Commander Donaldson) had certainly not finished his question.

Mr. Speaker: Both those points of order refer in contrary senses to the length of the question that was being asked by the hon. and gallant Member. There is no point of order in either of them.

The Prime Minister: Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will permit me to answer so much of his question as I can remember. As I understand it, Lord Alexander was not aware that the Press were present—[Interruption.] Do try to

apply the ordinary processes of reasoning—but when he learned that they were present he expressed the hope that they would be governed by the usual restraint, and they certainly were. Lord Alexander was right in expressing this hope, and the Press were right in giving effect to it. The only people who are wrong are those who are seeking to make a party ramp out of it.

Mr. Shinwell: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
the withholding from Parliament by Ministers of information subsequently disclosed by the Minister of Defence at a public dinner, and said by him to be secret.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the withholding from Parliament by Ministers of information subsequently disclosed by the Minister of Defence at a public dinner, and said by him to be secret.
I am like the rest of the House in having heard the answer for the first time. I have allowed this discussion by way of supplementary questions to proceed in order to seek enlightenment, and as I understand the matter from the last question asked by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, it really seems to me to boil down to a question, as he put it, of an expression of regret for some discourtesy shown to the House. If that be so, I would point out first of all to this House that it is the other House to which the Minister of Defence belongs, and in which he made his speech. That is relevant from the point of view of any question of Privilege; it is for the other House to deal with.
It seems to me that I should be wrong to allow the Adjournment of the House to be moved under the Standing Order on the ground of urgency. The words have been said and an explanation of them has been given, and there is nothing that the House could do, it seems to me, by interrupting the Orders of the Day today, to change the situation. It seems to me that the proper course for hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who criticise in this matter is to put down a


Motion of censure if, on further reflection, they see fit to do so. It does not appear to me to be a case which comes within the Standing Order on the ground of urgency.

Mr. Attlee: May I submit to you, Sir, that the statements made in the other place and in this House were to all intents and purposes identical, and therefore there was a withholding of information not only from another place but from this House? This House, therefore, was given an incomplete view of the situation in Korea, and that, I submit to you, is a matter of urgency that requires to be corrected.

Mr. Bowles: May I also submit, Mr. Speaker, that the matter is urgent because the noble Lord may go to another dinner tonight and disclose more? Secondly, may I, with great respect, suggest to you that I doubt very much whether hon. and right hon. Members of this House have the Light to put down a Motion of censure on a Member of another place? I should have thought that that really would have been a breach of Privilege so far as the other House is concerned.

Mr. Speaker: It would, of course, be a Motion of censure on the Government referring to the conduct of one of its Ministers.
In reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, I would say that my difficulty is that, though a statement was made in this House by the Minister of State on his experiences in Korea, it was not the Minister of State who made the speech at the Canada Club. I have to prevent the rule from being wrongfully used, and I would ask the House to accept that this is not a sufficiently urgent matter. The rule is really intended for the interruption of the Orders of the Day and the business assigned for the day when a discussion on some emergency of this character can usefully be held.
I ask the House to consider what has been said today, and if they think fit to pursue this matter further, remembering that apparently it is agreed that there is no question of security involved, or I might have taken a different view of the matter. [Interruption.] I think that is the general view—to put down a Motion of censure dealing with the matter.
I think that would be the regular way of dealing with it.

Mr. Attlee: May I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the real matter of urgency is that, so far as we know, none of these Ministers seems to understand the proper relationship of the Government to the House? They may all be running round making speeches.

The Prime Minister: On that point, might I suggest the appropriateness of a Motion of censure to cover these general charges?

Mr. Speaker: It appears to me, and I hope the House will agree, that this really resolves itself more into a question of the propriety of the conduct of the Minister than of any real injury to the public service—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh] That is my view. I hope the House will follow, either on a Supply Day or by a Motion of censure, the course which I have suggested.

Mr. Driberg: On a point of order. May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if you will consider giving your Ruling, if not today then tomorrow, on the constitutional propriety of the practice of Her Majesty's Ministers in submitting the text of their speeches for approval and censorship by senior military officers of a foreign Power, even a friendly foreign power, before delivering them to Parliament?

The Prime Minister: Further to that point of order, and on a point of order with regard to the statement made. I submit that that statement of the hon. Gentleman is absolutely misleading and that there was no question of submitting the text of the statement to be made here for the approval of a foreign Power, but only of getting friendly advice as to what would be helpful to common operations by officers who bear the responsibility.

Mr. Speaker: That is a separate point of order.

Mr. S. Silverman: Reverting to your original Ruling Mr. Speaker, may I suggest, with respect, that the point about the urgency of such a debate as my right hon. Friend wants to have, and which might indeed change the situation, is this—that in view of the matter which my right hon. Friend has raised, neither of these Ministers is any longer fit to hold their offices, and particularly the Minister


of Defence, in view of his disclosure of information which he refused to the House. If that view is correct, it is obviously an urgent matter, and it is obviously a matter on which an immediate debate could, if the vote went a certain way, change the situation.

Mr. Gower: Further to that point of order—

Mr. Silverman: May I have an answer?

Mr. Gower: —if a Minister who has not been reared in the contentious atmosphere of this honourable House—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are making very slow progress. We must get on.

Mr. Gower: If such a Minister should, in the atmosphere of a social meeting, a friendly meeting—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. In reply to the question addressed to me by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), I think his point is that he thinks the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Adjournment, or sought to move it, considers that these Ministers are not fit for their posts and that that is an urgent matter. Well, I think every Opposition in the history of this House has held the view that Ministers, or some of them, on the Government Front Bench have not been fit for their posts; and I do not think that such a widely and constantly held opinion can be treated as a matter of urgency.

Mr. Gower: Mr. Speaker—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: I hope the House will listen.

Mr. Gower: Very briefly, if such a Minister ventures an expression of opinion beyond what he may have said either in another place or in this House, and if right hon. and hon. Members are critical of that, are not they being unduly sensitive?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me.

Mr. Shinwell: Surely there is some urgency in so far as a point has now been established, namely, that the Minister of Defence, after having made a

certain statement in another place on behalf of the Government, amended his statement at a public function on the same day—[Horn. MEMBERS: "A private function."]—amended his statement at a function on the same day, and that, in the opinion of the Prime Minister himself, what the Minister of Defence did was "unfortunate." Surely the urgency lies in this, that it is desirable that the House should have an opportunity of expressing an opinion—

The Prime Minister: On a point of order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I understood I was listening to a point of order.

Mr. Shinwell: I was coming to the point that surely the House should be afforded an opportunity at the very earliest moment of expressing an opinion which at any rate might have the effect of preventing other Ministers from conducting themselves—

The Prime Minister: Like you.

Mr. Shinwell: —in this unfortunate manner? I submit that that is a legitimate point of order and a legitimate ground of urgency.

Mr. Speaker: In answer to that point of order, I must say that, if any Ministers have not been sufficiently impressed already with the difficulties that may arise from an unhappy choice of words, I do not think that any further discussion today would do that. But I do not in any way seek to say that, if the House thinks that this is a proper matter for discussion, as showing some lack of competence or courtesy, or what you will, on the part of the Minister, it should not put down a Motion for a debate. That could be done. I am only concerned, in the interests of the whole House, to try to administer Standing Order No. 9 fairly and correctly.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): As you have given—

Mr. J. Hudson: On a point of order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think there are several points of order, and the one I am first disposed to listen to is that of the Lord Privy Seal.

Mr. Crookshank: I was going to ask whether, as you, Sir, have given your


Ruling twice on this definitive question raised from the Front Bench opposite, it is not the ordinary practice of the House that your Ruling should at once be accepted, and that, you having given a decision and certain advice, it is up to hon. and right hon. Members opposite to consider the advice you have given with the best grace they can, and that we should get on with further business at once?

Mr. Speaker: That is the usual practice; but I would point out that when an hon. Member gets up on a point of order I do not know what he is going to say until he has said it. That is the difficulty. I cannot check an hon. Member who rises before I know what he is going to say, and by that time he has said it.

Mr. Crookshank: Is it not a long-established practice that when Motions are attempted to be moved under this Standing Order, no point of order can possibly arise after Mr. Speaker has given his Ruling?

Mr. J. Hudson: As regards the question of urgency, I wish to put to you, Mr. Speaker, a point of order that the House has not considered at all. I shall submit it with great respect. It is time that it should be considered. The point is this, that all this difficulty has arisen at what has been called a public dinner. Is it not a matter of great urgency that Ministers should cease trying to make important and dangerous declarations, requiring keen judgment and care, on such occasions, and is it not necessary that these statements should be made in other places, particularly when there is an opportunity to make them in Parliament? A public dinner should never be allowed to be a place where such statements may be made. I put that point seriously.

Mr. Speaker: That certainly is a novel point, but it is not a point of order.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: The Chancellor of the Exchequer.

GOLD AND DOLLAR RESERVES

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. R. A. Butler): With your permission. Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short statement on the gold and dollar position.
The gold and dollar deficit of the sterling area during the past quarter amounted to 14 million dollars. There was a net refund to the United States of America of one million dollars of E.R.P. money. The gold and dollar reserves, therefore, fell by 15 million dollars in the quarter. This compares with a deficit of 636 million dollars in the first quarter of the year, of which 299 million dollars was lost in January, 266 million dollars in February and 71 million dollars in March. At 30th June the reserves stood at 1,685 million dollars, compared with 1,700 million dollars on 31st March, 1952.
It is too early to give a detailed analysis of the reasons for this considerable improvement. But I should mention that we had receipts of 202 million dollars of defence aid from the United States of America as against ten million dollars in the first quarter of the year, and that our E.P.U. gold settlements amounted to 143 million dollars, compared with 219 million dollars in the first quarter. Again, we have started to see the effect upon our imports from the dollar area of the cuts which we in the United Kingdom have had to make; and also the effect of the action taken following the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting by other members of the sterling area. The fall in imports has not, however, involved a reduction in the total quantity of stocks of essential imported foods and raw materials.
There are also seasonal influences which have worked in our favour during the quarter just ended. For all these reasons I must repeat what I said to the House on 12th June. First, that we have gained a respite, but the task before us is long and hard; and, second, that we must put the balance of payments first in all our considerations and that we shall continue to take whatever further measures prove necessary to maintain confidence in sterling and to balance our payments.
In future, since the E.P.U. balance is announced monthly, the figures for the


gold and dollar reserves will also be published monthly. I will give explanations of them to the House from time to time, as may seem necessary.

Mr. Gaitskell: I should like to ask the Chancellor why, in calculating the deficit or, as it may be, the surplus of the sterling area, he now includes economic aid from the United States of America, whereas previously both Sir Stafford Cripps and I always counted it separately? Does he not think that, for the purpose of comparison, it would be better to continue with the old practice, in which event I think that it would be correct to say that the deficit in the third quarter was 216 million dollars—that is, without counting any economic aid? Would the Chancellor confirm whether or not that figure is correct?
Would he also tell us what the rate of deficit has been in the last three weeks since he made the last statement? He has given us monthly figures for the first quarter of this year. I am not asking for all the monthly figures for the second quarter, but could we know the latest position? Thirdly, what further measures does he contemplate to deal with the dangerous situation disclosed by the low reserves and the fact that we are barely—in fact, not—in balance, despite substantial economic aid?

Mr. Butler: The answer to the first point is that there is really no difference between the right hon. Gentleman and myself. I took the trouble in my statement to illustrate the exact amount of aid, so it really comes to the same thing. I will certainly look into what he has said, because it is the desire of the Government to place before the House and the country the exact position so that we all know where we are. That is why I included the amount of aid in the statement. If the right hon. Gentleman adds up the two figures, he will find that his mathematics are correct, except that I make allowance for one million dollars of E.R.P. money which he has not taken into his calculations.
On the second point about the differences in the various months, I have not got the exact figure between the exact dates, but I can say that there was a deficit of 38 million dollars in April, a plus of 16 million dollars in May and a plus of 8 million dollars in June.

Mr. Gaitskell: That includes economic aid?

Mr. Butler: Yes.

Mr. Gaitskell: Without economic aid?

Mr. Butler: The right hon. Gentleman will have to subtract the amount given in my statement. That I think he can do. He has shown his great mathematical ability. On the last point about when we intend to announce our further measures, the right hon. Gentleman can take it that they will be announced at the right time and that they will be appropriate.

Mr. Gaitskell: I will try to get my arithmetic right. I can only answer my own question if I can have a little more information. What the Chancellor has not disclosed to the House is the amount of economic aid which we have obtained in the last month. I think that he said that we had a small deficit, but what was the total amount of the aid? The right hon. Gentleman would probably agree that what really matters is the position before counting any aid. I would submit to him that, in presenting these accounts, it is very much better to count aid independently. Could he tell us what were the figures for economic aid granted in the last month?

Mr. Butler: I have not got the figures divided up into these periods, but if the right hon. Gentleman wants them I will do my best to give them. Perhaps he will put down a Question.

Mr. Dalton: Is the Chancellor aware that the position regarding the European Payments Union has for a long time been giving considerable disquiet both to the members of this Administration and to those of the previous one? We are still losing gold to Europe. Would I be right in supposing that the countries which are gaining the gold that we are losing are still primarily Belgium and Germany?

Mr. Butler: The right hon. Gentleman, as well as the whole House, must be well aware that at one time we had a surplus with the Union and that, unfortunately, we have a deficit which, owing to the tranche we are now in, has to be paid in gold. As a result of the recent discussions in Paris, in which I took part, we have, therefore, arranged to reduce our deficit by the sum of £8,929,000, as a result of the arrangements by which 50 million dollars of the Belgian credit to


the Union is to be transformed into bilateral credits to the United Kingdom and France to be repaid by deliveries of armaments over two years, and to that extent we shall relieve ourselves of gold payments. If I may say so, it will be the continual anxiety of the Government to try to relieve the United Kingdom of this great burden.

Mr. Dalton: That is not an answer to my question. The question I asked the Chancellor was who is getting the gold we are losing? Is it not still the case that the principal beneficiaries through this operation are Belgium and Germany?

Mr. Butler: I do not think it is a case of being a beneficiary, because, after all, a payments union is a reflection of the transactions of trade, and if we were to restore our balance, we should not have to pay so much. I do not think we must make it a reproach to any nation where they have a credit, but the facts, broadly, are as the right hon. Gentleman has said.

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Chancellor whether he will not agree that the Union was set up—[Interruption.] I see the Prime Minister is leaving. It is all right, he has had a hard time this afternoon. Is it not a fact that when the European Payments Union was formed, there was a general understanding that each country should keep in balance with the Union, and that there is an obligation on creditor countries with surpluses also to take all possible steps to get themselves back into balance again? Does he consider that adequate action to that end is being taken by Belgium and Germany?

Mr. Butler: I must be careful in my remarks not to make any criticism in any way of the actions of foreign Governments, but the right hon. Gentleman will be satisfied to note that the most intimate conversations took place in Paris between myself, representing the United Kingdom, and the Finance Ministers of the countries concerned. I am satisfied that they are well aware of the necessity of reducing their imports from America and so governing their trade that they are in a position to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman as well as myself.

The Prime Minister: May I go now?

Mr. Osborne: Is it not correct that, though our gold and dollar position is

still precarious, the position which the Chancellor has revealed this afternoon shows a great improvement compared with the same period last year? Can he also explain why it is that the Opposition look so glum when things are improving, and were so cheerful when we were meeting the difficulties that face us in Korea?

Mr. Butler: I can only say, in reply to that question, that certainly there is an improvement, and I should add that the scale of American aid is very much less than in the period to which the right hon. Gentleman was referring. Although I think that, in the circumstances, we should be united in agreeing that there has been an improvement, if we are to get a surplus we have still a great deal of difficulty in the final working out.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is no Question before the House.

CIVIL LIST

Committee to consider the Acts relating to the Civil List upon Tuesday next.

Her Majesty's Most Gracious Message [19th May] respecting the Civil List referred to the Committee.

Report [26th June] from the Select Committee on the Civil List referred to the Committee.—[Mr. Buchan-Hepburn.]

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS

CIVIL DEFENCE FORCES

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: I beg to give notice that, on Friday, 18th July, I shall call attention to the need for additional recruits in the Civil Defence forces, and move a Resolution.

EXPORT TRADE (SALESMANSHIP)

Colonel J. H. Harrison: I beg to give notice that, on Friday, 18th July, I shall call attention to the need for extending British salesmanship in foreign countries in order to increase our export trade, and move a Resolution.

SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION

Mr. James Johnson: I beg to give notice that, on Friday, 18th July, I shall call attention to the need for the provision of adequate school accommodation, and move a Resolution.

Orders of the Day — MEMORIAL TO FIELD MARSHAL SMUTS

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will give directions that a monument be erected at the public charge to the memory of the late Field Marshal Smuts, as an expression of the admiration of this House for his illustrious career and its gratitude for his devoted service to the Commonwealth, and to assure Her Majesty that this House will make good the expenses attending the same.—[Mr. Crookshank.]

4.37 p.m.

Mrs. Eirene White: I am not quite clear whether, on this occasion, the same procedure is to be followed as that with regard to the memorial to President Roosevelt, in which case a Bill was later introduced. Possibly, on this occasion, there will be no need for legislation, as the circumstances are not quite analogous.
If that is so, there is all the more reason why we should raise at this stage the question of a possible site for the proposed memorial, because, otherwise it will be decided and there will be no chance of bringing to the notice of those responsible the feelings of some of us at any rate, in this part of the Committee, upon this matter.
I hope that, in choosing a site, a measure of tact and discretion will be shown. I say this because there have already been suggestions made in the public Press of a possible site, which I will mention in a moment, but about which there may be feelings among some of us. We in this country have every reason to be both grateful and appreciative of the work of the late Field Marshal in the Commonwealth and during two world wars. In these two respects, his work is very properly called illustrious, but I would draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that we have citizens in other countries of the Commonwealth who may, perhaps, have rather less reason for gratitude to the late Field Marshal.
It is, unfortunately, true, that, admirable as was his work in many respects,

he did not always show in his domestic career the magnanimity which he displayed towards his former military opponents in this country. In dealing with Africans and with the coloured peoples and with those people in the Union of South Africa whose origins were in the Asian countries of the Commonwealth, his actions sometimes left something to be desired. I think it would be very unfortunate if, in choosing a site, we chose one which might be considered not quite appropriate by some of our fellow citizens in the Commonwealth. I say this because there have been suggestions in the Press that this monument might be placed in Parliament Square.
I would draw the attention of those who may be responsible to the fact that there is at least one position in Parliament Square which might be considered not quite appropriate for the purpose. There may be some members of the Commonwealth who would find it extremely incongruous to have a statue of Field Marshal Smuts placed in immediate proximity to that of Abraham Lincoln.
I hope, therefore, that while we express in a proper way our own appreciation of the work which the Field Marshal did in his relationship with this country, we shall bear in mind the possible feelings of other members of the Commonwealth in making our decision upon this matter.

Mr. T. Driberg: I should like to support very strongly what the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) has just said. I want actually to deal with an entirely different point, which I hope will also be in order, but I do feel—and many of us on this side feel—that it was necessary at some time in the course of these debates that what my hon. Friend has said, with such grace and discretion, should be said; otherwise, there might have been widespread misunderstanding in various parts of Africa, among millions of our fellow-citizens of the Commonwealth.
The other point which I would like to make is this. I hope that when this proposal is agreed to by Parliament, and when it is being considered in practice, considerable care will be taken with regard to the actual form and design of the memorial. My hon. Friend has already referred, in another connection, to the case of the memorial to President Roosevelt, and I know that the present


Prime Minister himself took a great personal interest in the unfortunate controversy which arose about that memorial. I hope that it may be possible to avoid any such controversy in this case by having, if not a completely open competition, at any rate perhaps a limited competition for the design of the memorial—the statue or whatever it is to be—with well-accredited assessors to select the final form.
I say that without any disrespect to the eminent sculptor who sometimes seems to be regarded as the only sculptor who can ever be commissioned to create an important memorial for public display in this country. Such a commission should not always and automatically be given to the same sculptor, however distinguished and eminent. Younger sculptors also should have their chance of putting in designs for consideration. Although the Prime Minister is not with us at the moment, I hope that this point may be brought to his personal attention, because it is a matter in which he might well be interested.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Charles Doughty: I will say nothing about the last words spoken by the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg), because I know nothing about sculpture—I am sure that whatever design is produced by the Ministry of Works with the assistance of the hon. Member for Maldon will be of the best—but I rise to defend the name which has been slightly attacked today by the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White).
Field Marshal Smuts was one of the greatest members of the British Empire that has ever lived. Although he fought against us, he honourably helped us afterwards. He is also one of the greatest members that the Dominion of South Africa has ever had, and he has been of the greatest assistance to that Dominion. Whatever he did was for the best for that country—let us make no mistake about that—even if some of his actions may be criticised by those who are ill-informed.
Let us never forget that he knew the facts better than anyone else, and that in the years that he lived the Dominion of South Africa was one of the stars of the British Commonwealth. I hope that his memorial will be erected in a place of

prominence in the County of London. Whether it be erected outside South Africa House—which, I think, would be an excellent place for it—or whether it be placed in some more prominent position, must be decided by those who have given more thought to the matter than I have.
But, wherever it is, Field Marshal Smuts deserves the best that this Empire can give him; he deserves the best site available in London for his memorial, whatever form it may take, so that any member of the British Empire, of whatever race, colour or creed he may be, may look upon that memorial with pride and do honour to a very great man and a very great member of the British Empire. I rise to protect his name against any slight that may inadvertently have been directed against it.

Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: I am not concerned with the merits or demerits of any statesman to whose memory it is desired to erect a memorial. The one point on which I should welcome some further elucidation is whether the monument to be erected at public expense must take the form of a sculptural representation of the individual in question. I ask that because London is already far too cluttered up with monuments of one kind and another.

Mr. Driberg: Far too few good ones.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: I should be prepared to accept for myself a kind of self-denying ordinance that before any new monument is erected one of the old ones should be removed. I think that would help to improve the appearance of London. After all, London is the heart of the Empire, the centre of a great Commonwealth, and we have the obligation to make quite sure, first of all, that if we want to erect a monument it should be of a suitable type, and, secondly, that an excessive number of monuments should not be allowed to deface the appearance of this Metropolis in which we are all interested.
We are not deciding here and now that the monument shall take the form of a sculptural representation of Field Marshal Smuts, and will the right hon. Gentleman consider the matter from the point of view of the number of monuments that already exist in London, some of which ought certainly to be removed. If the Minister


were to say that two or three monuments are to be removed to make room for a better one in memory of Field Marshal Smuts, then I should be more inclined to support the Motion now before the House.

Captain M. Bullock: I wish to say a few words in support of what the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) has said. I think that London possesses some of the worst statues in the world, and as we grow older some of us regard many of them with horror. I hope that the Minister will seize this opportunity to give the work to some younger sculptor, that he may, perhaps, make it a matter of competition, and that we may have the opportunity of seeing the examples which are submitted.
As to the site, I hope that somewhere near Parliament Square can be found. There are empty spaces and no more fitting place could be found for a memorial to Field Marshal Smuts. I think it will have to be in the form of an effigy. We have had some terrible examples when we have not had effigies. An example which most of us see daily is the memorial to Queen Alexandra. It is an appalling fountain which does not even work. It has only a trickle of water: it represents nothing in particular and is altogether a very bad lapse.
I hope that a suitable young sculptor, somebody new, will be found. I will not mention names, because we all know the old hack sculptors who go round not only London but the provinces as well. I hope that it will be borne in mind that here is a great opportunity to give us something of which we shall all be proud and to the unveiling of which we can all look forward.

Mr. Charles Pannell: I would not have risen had it not been for the remarks of the hon. Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty). He seemed to imagine that it was rather out of place for my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) to suggest that there were aspects about this memorial which ought to be considered in deference to the feelings of others. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) that the hon. Lady handled the matter with considerable tact.
Anybody who has studied the subject knows that the opinion held in certain

parts of the world about Field Marshal Smuts is not the opinion held here. Those other people hold their opinions with very deep sincerity indeed, and the statue would be incongruous if it were erected in any one of certain places. I hope that we shall have some tolerance in this matter. This gives me the opportunity of telling the hon. Member for Surrey, East how intolerant he is. The other Friday morning he was accorded the good will of the House to second a Motion which could have been counted out at any time.

The Chairman: I know what the hon. Member is referring to, but it cannot possibly arise at the present moment.

Mr. Pannell: If you will only listen to two more sentences, Sir Charles, I respectfully suggest that you will agree with me that what I am about to say is relevant. In the afternoon of that Friday my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) brought forward a Motion which affected coloured people.

The Chairman: I have ruled that reference out of order.

Mr. Pannell: With very great deference, after all the hon. Member for Surrey, East—

The Chairman: I have already ruled that out of order. It is not to be discussed.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: On a point of order.

The Chairman: On that particular point no further point of order can arise. I have given my Ruling and it cannot be discussed.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: With great respect, Sir Charles, I was about to say, in extenuation—

The Chairman: No extenuation is required. I have given my Ruling and it is perfectly fair.

Mr. Driberg: The hon. Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) extenuated the colour bar.

Mr. Pannell: I will not return to that, except to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East was referring to the colour bar.

Mr. Doughty: Mr. Doughty rose—

Mr. Pannell: I am not referring to the hon. Member, but to my hon. Friend. The hon. Member is far too sensitive. He thinks that I shall not abide by your Ruling, Sir Charles. My hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East was referring to the colour bar, which to some of us and most civilised people—

Mr. Doughty: On a point of order.

The Chairman: I do not think that any point of order can possibly arise.

Mr. Pannell: The colour bar, to most civilised people, is as indecent as anti-Semitism, and anyone who, in any public place, attempts to impede any Measure which attempts to put down the colour bar is not the sort of person or hon. Member who can afford to lecture my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East. Before the hon. Member for Surrey, East suggests that Field Marshal Smuts was the final judge upon all matters that affect the colour bar he ought to consider his own intolerance as an hon. Member of the House of Commons.

Dr. Barnett Stross: We have heard today, and quite rightly, that in Britain it is possible to see some of the worst sculpture in the world. Some of us are inclined to believe that a good deal of it is in the House of Commons. There must be some reason why we have not been eminently successful in this country in the type of public memorial we have erected either in London or elsewhere. But that is no reason why the Minister should not listen most carefully to the suggestion made on both sides of the Committee that we should have at least a limited form of competition and give the younger men a chance. It may be that memorials tend to be ugly because our form of clothing is ugly and does not lend itself to sculpture.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: It is improving with the hot weather.

Dr. Stross: It may be that sculpture will improve because the subject will look better. [An HON. MEMBER: "Nudists."] I cannot accept that the nude is eminently suitable for great men.
The Minister has a reputation for having some feeling for the fine arts and I know that he is personally interested. I only ask that he should take note

specifically of what we are asking and not only take the normal, ordinary interest of a Minister in the subject but personal interest as a citizen. Can he give a guarantee that he will put this memorial up to a limited form of competition? If he will do that I think it will please all of us on both sides of the Committee. That is a modest request and I think that the whole Committee will be delighted if he says yes.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): According to precedent it is rather unusual for any discussion to take place on a Motion of this kind, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Government in general will be pleased to take note of the various points made by hon. Members during this debate.
It is not possible to say anything at this stage about the form or site of the monument which, after the Address is presented, we hope may be erected in due course. No one has any authority today. We are only asking for approval of this Motion in Committee because money is involved. The proposal was approved unanimously by the whole House the other day.
I do not think I can promise the hon. and gallant Member for Brixton, (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) that for every new statue erected in London another is to be removed. I do not think we are going into a system of statuary pairs in this matter. That, perhaps, would be going a little far. And whether there are a number of good or bad statues in London is a matter of opinion. One can only assume that at the time and by the person by whom they were erected, they were thought to be good or they would not have been put up at all. Tastes change, but this is neither the time nor the place, owing to lack of authority, to make a statement. All the points raised today will be considered.

Mr. Driberg: Will the right hon. Gentleman bring the matter to the notice of the Prime Minister in view of his personal interest in the Roosevelt memorial controversy?

Mr. Crookshank: Anything to do with a memorial to Field Marshal Smuts, who was one of the Prime Minister's best friends as well as one of the best friends this country has ever had, will, of course,


be a matter for his immediate and personal consideration.

Question put, and agreed to nemine contradicente.

Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will give directions that a monument be erected at the public charge to the memory of the late Field Marshal Smuts, as an expression of the admiration of this House for his illustrious career and its gratitude for his devoted service to the Commonwealth, and to assure Her Majesty that this House will make good the expenses attending the same.

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

POST OFFICE (AMENDMENT) BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(INCREASE TO THREEPENCE OF MAXIMUM POUNDAGE ON CERTAIN POSTAL ORDERS.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Ness Edwards: This Clause was really the main subject matter of the Second Reading debate. The purpose of the Bill is contained in this Clause, and in discussing it I hope that we shall be able to get from the Assistant Postmaster-General an answer to the questions that were asked in the previous debate. Since those questions related to this Clause, I assume that it will be in order to discuss them now on the Question that the Clause stand part.

The Chairman: That is not quite the case. At this stage the Committee may only discuss what is in the Clause.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I agree, and I do not intend to discuss anything that is not in the Clause. What I am anxious about is that we should have some answers to the questions which were put about the Clause—the reasons for the Clause and the matters for which the Clause provides. We asked those question on the Second Reading and did not get an answer. When the Assistant Postmaster-General dealt with the matter in the first place he did so as the Assistant Postmaster-General, but when he replied with the permission

of the House he dealt with it as an irresponsible back bencher. I hope that today he will apply himself, as Assistant Postmaster-General, to the questions that have been put.
The first thing we have to do is to try to convince him of the logic of our case so that he will not ride off on some Aunt Sallies that he puts up and then make extravagant charges about hon. Members on this side of the Committee. What he says in defence of this Clause is this: Without this Clause—which, after all, is the effective part of the Bill—he would have a Post Office deficit. That is his reason for it, and that is the argument that he has already put forward. The fact is that he does not need this Clause. Before getting the Clause he had already provided for a commercial surplus of £6,950,000 this year, and by the other provisions which he has obtained from the House he has got in a full year £11 million as a commercial surplus.
Therefore, his arguments that he submitted in favour of this Clause on Second Reading were quite untrue. He must have known that they were untrue. He must know that without this Clause he has got the commercial surplus that he really wants. I repeat that point to him. He has got a commercial surplus of £6,950,000 for this year. He estimated that without the provisions that have been made he would have had a deficit of roughly £2 million, but that the provisions which have been passed have enabled him to get this surplus. Now he asks in this year, by the terms of this Clause, for an additional surplus of £1,050,000 and in a full year under this Clause £1,350,000. This is an additional surplus.
I hope that when he comes to reply the hon. Gentleman will remember that he argued against my hon. Friends and myself on the basis that he had a deficit in the commercial account. That is the point that we want him to meet. The position is that he will have a surplus of £6,950,000 this year and £11 million in a full year without this Clause. He said that if he did not get his Clause he would not have the money with which to meet the wage increases. Really, that sort of argument cannot be classed as an honest argument. It is erroneous, and if the hon. Gentleman knows his brief it is a dishonest one.
Let me go one step further. The hon. Gentleman went further in this policy of misrepresentation, and I hope he is not going to repeat it today. He attacked my hon. Friend the Member for Droylsden (Mr. W. R. Williams) who could not be here. He knew that my hon. Friend could not be here, yet he attacked him on the basis that he did not have a commercial surplus of £6,950,000 and that by refusing to support this Clause my hon. Friend was really voting against the wage increases. That sort of thing ought not to be done.
I hope the hon. Gentleman will apply his mind to this argument. Nothing that has been said or done from this Box could, by any stretch of the imagination, be twisted to mean that we were against the commercial surplus. He knows that. The commercial surplus has already been provided. Let us assume, however, that this additional surplus provided for in this Clause, amounting to £1,350,000, is justifiable as an addition to the £6,950,000 that he has already got.
I am not prepared to say that it is justifiable, but let us assume it. Let us give him that part of the case, and let us suppose that the Treasury ought to have £8 million this year out of the Post Office and about £12 million next year. Is this the way in which the additional surplus ought to be raised? That is the matter to which he must apply his mind. Is he really entitled to raise the amount of money that is provided for in this Clause?
It has been said that the postal order service is the poor man's cheque service. I think that is so, and I do not think we ought to place on that service a burden which would price it out of the market, or cast an additional burden upon a particular section of the community. The hon. Gentleman well knows that there are other Post Office services which are making a loss, which are serving the rich organisations and are capable of bearing a burden greater than the one that he has imposed on the postal order service. He knows that, and if he had been frank with the House he would have told us so. What are the services on which a loss is made, and what are the sections of the community that they are serving? That is where this charge ought to have been imposed.
Had the hon. Gentleman said that by this Clause he was increasing the charge to make the service pay for itself and provide, say, a surplus of £100,000, there would have been some merit in that case. It is not one that would have aroused violent objection. But the hon. Gentleman does not do that. When he asks, not for £350,000 but for £1,350,000, he is discriminating against those people who use the postal order service—namely, the poorer people in the country. In effect he is putting a tax of £1 million on this section of the community. I say that the Post Office ought not to be the means of gathering taxes. There ought not to be any element of taxation in Post Office charges. I should like him to apply his mind to that consideration.
He used two arguments against us in regard to this matter. When he was dealing with the first part of our case he said:
… I admit that we are raising by this taxation a larger sum than is necessary to wipe out that deficit.
Under Clause 1 the hon. Gentleman admits to raising £1 million as a means of taxation. That is something which cannot be defended from any point of view. It is the sort of thing which the hon. Gentleman never defended when he sat on this side of the House. He dealt with the other part of our case when he was talking about the poundage on these postal orders. He said:
A very convincing case can be made by suggesting that in putting this poundage of ½d. … on the value of the average postal order we are hitting the poorer sections of the population.
He admits that, but in order to justify what he is doing he went on to ask:
Have we reached the stage when the Revenue should subsidise people who invest in football pools?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd June, 1952; Vol. 502, c. 1911–2]
If that is so, is the contrary the case?—that we must penalise people who invest in football pools in order to subsidise the Treasury?
If we are going to tax football pools, let us tax them honestly and straightforwardly. The hon. Gentleman says that 56 per cent. of all postal orders are issued for football pools purposes. The remainder of the people do not use them for those purposes, so that in order to catch 56 per cent. of the people, under Clause 1 the hon. Gentleman is going to


penalise the 44 per cent. who never use a postal order for football pools. What sort of equity is that? What sort of a reasoned case is that? It might satisfy the groundlings on the benches behind him but it will not satisfy reasonably-minded men who have a sense of responsibility.
Let me sum up, so that the hon. Gentleman will know to what he has to reply. He has not to reply to the question whether or not there should be a commercial surplus. It would be dishonest of him to argue that today. He has already got his commercial surplus; he knows he has got it; and he ought to have told his hon. Friends that he had got it when he made that Conservative Central Office attack on some of my hon. Friends. It is not playing fair with the House or with his job of Assistant Postmaster-General.
What is the next point with which he has to deal? He has to justify his additional commercial surplus of £1,350,000 this year by this method. He has to justify the amount he is raising. He knows that under this Clause he ought to be raising only £330,000 in a full year, but he is raising £1 million more than is necessary.
The next thing about which he ought to be able to satisfy us is that nowhere else in the Post Office is there a service which ought to bear the charge which is contained in this Clause. He ought to satisfy us that there is not a more equitable way of raising the money he requires to give £8 million to the Treasury this year.
5.15 p.m.
That, shortly, is the case against this Clause. When he replies the hon. Gentleman must not attempt to ride it off by talking about a general commercial surplus or about my hon. Friend being against wage increases which I conceded when I was Postmaster-General. In other words, what we ask of the hon. Gentleman is that he should treat the Committee fairly. The House has a tremendous amount of good will for the Post Office. He ought not to sacrifice or to place in jeopardy that good will by silly attacks such as he made when he wound up on Second Reading.
We shall all co-operate with him to give the Post Office the best possible

chance; but I must say that in future what he gives, that will he get back, and he will not be doing any service to the Post Office unless he gives a faithful account of what he does, and deals with the arguments upon their merits. That is the case against this Clause and I hope that when the hon. Gentleman replies he will seek to justify what has been provided for in this case.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: In order not to detain the Committee I want to make only one or two brief observations on this Clause. We were told during the Second Reading debate that this Clause will result in wiping out the deficit of £130,000 which arises in the operation of the postal order service. We were further told that this Clause will result in bringing in to the postal order section of the Post Office a revenue of £1,350,000 in excess of expenditure. Clause 1 states:
The limit specified … on the poundage payable in respect of postal orders for an amount not exceeding twenty-one shillings shall be increased by one penny; and accordingly in the said proviso for the word 'two-pence' there shall be substituted the word threepence.'
As I see it, the wording of that Clause deals specifically with one class of postal order, and yet there are to be increases to other denominations of postal orders.
For instance, the 2d. and 3d. increase, which is an increase of 50 per cent., will be on the range of postal orders between 6s. and 21s. As we all know, there are postal orders of denominations between 6d. and 1s., and 1s. 6d. and 5s., and we were told, on Second Reading, that the poundage on these respective categories was to be increased from 1d. to 1½d. and from 1½d. to 2d. This Clause specifically relates to subsection (2) of the 1935 Post Office (Amendment) Act. I have taken the trouble to look up this Act and find that:
Proviso (a) to subsection (1) of the said section twenty-four shall cease to have effect and the amounts for which postal orders may be issued and the poundage to be payable in respect of them shall be such as may be prescribed by Post Office Regulations.
I take it that arising from the passage of this Clause Regulations will have to be made governing the lower denominations of postal orders. That is the position as I see it. I should be glad if the Assistant Postmaster-General will say so when he replies.
That brings me to the next point. As my right hon. Friend has said, the alterations will bring an increased revenue of £1,300,000. Obviously this Clause in itself will not do that, because we shall not get such a profit on the postal order service merely by altering the denomination from 6s. to 21s. That is obvious from the numbers issued. What we want to know is this: will Regulations be made under this Clause in order to cover the lower denominations of postal orders?

Mr. W. R. Williams: I shall not detain the Committee for more than a few minutes, and I should not have intervened but for the fact that, for some reason or another, hon. Members on both sides are getting very interested in the hon. Member for Droylsden (Mr. W. R. Williams). My attention has been drawn to a reference made to the hon. Member for Droylsden by the Assistant Postmaster-General, and I am rather surprised that he made that reference in the form in which he did. In the first place, I thought he would have known, after having been specifically told about it, that I was attending another meeting. I thought my absence from the Chamber at that moment was well understood by the Assistant Postmaster-General. Yet he went out of his way to make what I regard as a rather unkind and unfriendly reference.

Mr. Ness Edwards: And a very dishonest one.

Mr. Williams: I would not go as far as to say it was dishonest, but I think it was unfriendly and unfair. The suggestion is that the whole amount of this money will be regarded as to the credit side for the wages of Post Office workers, but that is not so. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget speech, made it quite clear that, while part of this would go towards increased requirements for the Post Office, he expected that some part of it would be regarded as indirect taxation going to the Treasury.
Why, therefore, should the Assistant Postmaster-General suggest that if I had been here, I would inevitably have been bound not to vote against the Bill because such a vote would be tantamount to saying that I did not think the Post

Office workers should have had the increases which they have had in the last year or two? Incidentally, for the benefit of both Front Benches, in most cases they had to fight very hard for those increases and in some cases they had to go to arbitration in order to get them. They were not all voluntary concessions.
I want to place it on record that, despite what the Assistant Postmaster-General has done, nobody on the Floor of the House knows better than I do how much more Post Office workers are entitled to by way of emoluments for the services they are rendering to the country. In my opinion, what they have had in recent years is nothing like what they should have had. But perhaps I can assume the converse of what the Assistant Postmaster-General said on the last occasion—that if we give him this Bill, it will be quite reasonable for him to expect a further claim from Post Office servants for additional wages. I know that in some grades they are very dissatisfied with their present wages, and I know that claims are pending for two or three grades, if not more. Can I assume that the Assistant Postmaster-General's anxiety about these wages will result in a concession—an urgent, early and full concession—to the claims which will be made to him?
I think the hon. Gentleman unfortunately had a brief prepared for him on the assumption that I would take part in the debate. As I did not take part in it, the brief was not much good in the form in which it had been prepared and he had to make himself look rather silly in the House in trying to apply an out-of-date brief to the situation.
As far as I am concerned, all I want him to remember is this. I shall never oppose the Post Office getting sufficient into their commercial account to carry out their responsibilities to the people of this country and to the workers of their own industry, but I repeat what I have said on many occasions in the House—in my opinion it is not the basic fundamental purpose of the Post Office to be a sort of tax collector for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In my opinion the Chancellor and the Post Office must face the fact that it is not the purpose of the Post Office to collect indirect taxes. Its purpose is to render service to this nation, the best service, the most efficient service,


the most speedy service, and at the same time to pay the people who do this service a reasonable standard of wages.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. David Gammans): May I first deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Droylsden (Mr. W. R. Williams)? I have too great a regard for him to expect him to think that when I referred to his absence on Second Reading I meant anything derogatory. If I may refer to my own words, I said that I had no doubt that there was a very good reason why he had not taken part in the debate.
What I was seeking to imply, and perhaps he would take it as such, was a compliment to him, because his knowledge of the Post Office working and its functions is so great that I think he, above all others, would have recognised the very intimate connection between Post Office charges to the public and Post Office costs, including wages; and I think he would have seen very quickly that in condemning these additional charges, one was running the risk, to put it mildly, of condemning the increases in wages which have made those charges inevitable. I had such regard for him that I thought he very wisely would not take part in the debate, even were he able physically to do so.

Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman is making the position infinitely worse. I do not mind him apologising; I accept his apology unreservedly. But he knew why I was not here, and all he need have said was this, "I regret that the hon. Member for Droylsden is not in his place; I know that he is at another meeting; I feel quite sure he would have liked to have been here." Instead of that he said, simply, that no doubt there was some other reason for my absence; and now, at the end of his statement, he seems to imply that he does not blame me for not being present.

Mr. Gammans: It is a small point, and I do not wish in any way to make any imputations against the hon. Gentleman.
Most of the points which have been raised by the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) and the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Hobson) were raised by them, quite rightly, on Second Reading, and I am sorry that the explanation which I then gave did not entirely satisfy them. Strictly speaking,

they are not Committee points, but as this Clause is, in fact, the Bill, I am grateful to you, Sir Charles, for having permitted them to be raised. I should not like the right hon. Gentleman, above all, to be under any misapprehension.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me some questions. First of all, what is the reason for the Post Office deficit this year on the commercial account, or to put it another way, why would there have been a commercial deficit had it not been for the increased charges, of which this poundage charge on postal orders is one?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I must say I could not have made myself plain. I thought I summed up the points for the hon. Gentleman. First of all, will he admit that we have never been opposed to a commercial surplus and that we have never argued against a commercial surplus? What I asked him to deal with particularly was this. Would he admit that it is true that there is a commercial surplus of over £6 million. I then asked him to explain why it was necessary to raise this additional surplus on this service, and to explain if he could why he raised a surplus of £1 million more than was necessary to get the ordinary surplus.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Gammans: The right hon. Gentleman does not want to know what is the reason for the Post Office deficit? Then I shall not bore the Committee by telling him.
The right hon. Gentleman raises a point about the commercial surplus. It is not questioned that there must be a commercial surplus, and I am very glad that it is not, because we have had some very peculiar expressions used at various stages of the debate on this matter about the commercial surplus. The word "filched" was used. It was suggested that money was being filched by me on behalf of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Let us realise what this surplus is, because some hon. Members have been talking as though this surplus were reparations which we were to pay to a foreign power. Whatever surplus there is in the Post Office goes into the Treasury, and, to that extent, it is for the benefit of the taxpayers and the community as a whole. That, I think, is generally agreed.
Therefore, all that we are arguing about is, what is the size of the surplus? I need not tell—certainly not the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite—the history of this. Some years ago the Post Office protested—I think, quite rightly—about the surplus that is made always being paid into the Treasury automatically. It was no inducement for the Post Office to be economical, and it was no inducement to the Post Office to plough back any surplus it might make for the benefit of the taxpayer. So this notional sum of about £10 million was accepted as what should be normal. There was no particular reason, but I think successive Governments have accepted that as being reasonable. I do think that that, to a large extent, answers the right hon. Gentleman's point.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether it was a fact that this additional poundage on postal orders would produce an estimated surplus of about £8 million. The answer is yes, it would—or, perhaps, I should say, I wish it would, because, as I told the House on Second Reading, the estimated surplus of £8 million on the current year is already out of date because of various increased charges of different sorts that have arisen since then. So let us—and I am sorry to have to say it—no longer talk about a surplus of £8 million on the current year. We shall not reach it. How much we shall have I cannot say.

Mr. Ness Edwards: Do not be too pessimistic.

Mr. Gammans: I am not being pessimistic. I am being realistic. Let us take the figure of £6.9 million. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman thinks this is not enough or too much.

Mr. Ness Edwards: A question has been asked, and the hon. Gentleman shall have an answer. I do not think it is, but the hon. Gentleman is not entitled to argue that, if we vote against this additional surplus on the poundage, we are against the wage increases, as he did so argue against my hon. Friend. That is the answer.

Mr. Gammans: The right hon. Gentleman wants to go back to the wage increases. He is going back to what he

denied having asked, and that is, the reason for the deficit—or the reason for the increased charges. The reason for the increased charges is that costs in the Post Office have gone up—costs which are overwhelmingly due to wages. I do not want to argue about those increased wages. One increase took place under the right hon. Gentleman's Administration and one took place under the present Administration.
I think this Committee is being slightly dishonest with itself if it objects to rising prices to the community when those charges come from increased wages. If we object to the inevitable consequences of an act we are by implication objecting to the act itself. We have had to make these increased charges in the Post Office—not only the poundage on postal orders, but telephone charges, which it would be quite out of order for me to discuss now, overwhelmingly because of the increased wages. What I was suggesting to the Committee was, that we should be honest with ourselves, and say that, if we approved of those wage increases, equally we must approve of the inevitable increase in charges that follows from them.
Let us come to the surplus of £6.9 million. I am not quite sure whether the right hon. Gentleman was arguing that that is not enough, or that it is too much, or that it is just the right sum. If he says that it is just the right sum, then what happens to the £10 million, which is regarded, and for many years past has been regarded, as a reasonable amount for the surplus that the Post Office should have? As I reminded the right hon. Gentleman on Second Reading, if £6.9 million is to be the surplus the Post Office should have, why did he sanction a surplus of £12 million, and then one of £16 million, and finally one of £20 million? [Interruption.] At any rate, it was during his administration.
There was a surplus of £12 million. The right hon. Gentleman sanctioned it. I think he would be on much stronger grounds today if at that time he had gone for his Chancellor of the Exchequer with the same vigour as he has exhorted me to go for the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, and if he had got some of that money back again. But I think he is on very weak grounds when he represents £6.9 million as too much.
The next point he made was that the extra poundage would price postal orders out of the market. Well, even from this distance I could see his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when he was trying to put that one across. For he realised, as he reminded the House on Second Reading, that 56 per cent. of the postal orders go on football pools—and we are asked to believe that another ½d. on the poundage will price the whole business out of the market. Really, I thought that the right hon. Gentleman would have put up a better case than that.
He also argued about the poor man's cheque. He said that the postal order is the poor man's cheque—that men sent remittances to their wives if they were working at some other place. That is true, but I would suggest that if a man sends money to his wife he is much more likely to use a money order than he is likely to use a postal order. And it was the right hon. Gentleman who put up the poundage on money orders last year. So I would leave that argument alone, too.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The hon. Gentleman must be fair.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro: He is doing well. He is rubbing it in.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The trouble is that the hon. Gentleman assumes people have said things and rubs in assumptions. He did not say from what he was quoting me—where I said that a man sends his wife money by means of postal orders. What is he talking about? That is the trouble. He cannot forget he was an irresponsible Conservative back bencher and remember that he is now the Assistant Postmaster-General. He ought now to treat the matter seriously.

Mr. Gammans: We heard the right hon. Gentleman's sob-stuff story, which almost brought tears to my eyes, about men sending money to their wives. It was a perfectly lovely story. It is true, but it is done not with postal orders; it is done with money orders. We have had a bit more of it today—about this hitting the poor man in time of emergency. As I had to remind the House on Second Reading, if anyone has hit the poor man at a time of emergency it is the right hon. Gentleman, who put up the charges for call boxes from 2d. to 3d.—for the call box is the poor man's telephone. It

was the right hon. Gentleman who raised telegrams from 1s. to 1s. 6d.—and it is a telegram that the poor man uses at a time of great stress and emergency in his family. I am quite prepared to be judged as the man who put ½d. on postal orders, which the right hon. Gentleman agrees are mostly used for football pools, if the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to accept the odium for having put up call box charges from 2d. to 3d. and the poor man's telegram from 1s. to 1s. 6d.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The hon. Gentleman is making this point, so let us treat it quite seriously. I put up the charges on the call box telephones, for the first time in 25 years, and even on that service I did not seek to get £1 million in taxation, which was hidden for the Treasury, as the hon. Gentleman has done with the postal order poundage. With regard to the telegrams, the hon. Gentleman knows the answer. The telegram service is still losing £4 million; it is still subsidised; it is still the poor man's means of communication, and he knows that what I did was commercially sound and morally right. What he is doing is commercially unsound and immoral.

Mr. Gammans: I think we had better leave the poor man out of it when it comes to that. The right hon. Gentleman says it was the first time the telephone charges had been raised for 25 years. I think that this is the first time that the poundage has been raised since 1796.

Mr. Ness Edwards: That is quite wrong.

Mr. Gammans: The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Hobson) mentioned the machinery for putting these increases into operation. I hope I made it clear to him on Second Reading that the authority, as I think he knows, is Section 24 of the Post Office Act, 1908, which was amended as he correctly pointed out, by the Post Office Act, 1935. This gives the Postmaster-General authority to issue postal orders without any limit as to their amount and poundage. The 2d. to which this Bill refers deals only with postal orders under 21s. in value. The next stage is that, under Section 1 (2) of the Post Office Act, 1935, Post Office Regulations have to be presented. The actual figures were given by the Chancellor at the time in page 23 of the Financial Statement.

Mr. R. E. Winterbottom: Will that affect postal orders up to £2? Will they be increased? Are we to assume that the increase will be from 4d. to 6d.?

Mr. Gammans: That is quite right. Perhaps I had better read it again. From 6d. to 1s. it is ½d. increase, that is to 11d.; from 1s. 6d. to 5s., which covers the bulk of the football pool clientele, it is from 1½d. to 2d.; from 6s. to 21s. it is from 2d. to 3d., and at 40s. it is from 4d. to 6d. I trust that I have dealt with the points raised by the Committee, and that I have given sufficient explanation.

Mr. Hobson: Will the Regulations which have to be laid before the House be subjected to the negative Resolution procedure, or will they merely be laid? If my memory serves me aright, I believe that they have merely to be laid.

Mr. Gammans: The hon. Gentleman is quite right. They merely have to be laid.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—[Mr. Butcher.]

5.45 p.m.

Mr. Ness Edwards: On a point of order. As I understand it, the Third Reading is not provided for on the Order Paper. I understood that we were merely taking the Committee stage today. Perhaps we could have the assistance of the Whip who moved the Third Reading as to whether or not he gave notice that the Third Reading was to be taken. I should like to ask for your guidance, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, whether the Third Reading can be taken without due notice having been given.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): It has been moved and it is in order.

Mr. Ness Edwards: But notice has not been given. It is not on the Order Paper, and if it is not down in the Government Orders of the Day, how can it be moved?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That, I understand, is a matter of courtesy. I really know nothing about it. I only know that happens on the Floor of the House.

Mr. Ness Edwards: If I may say so, with all due deference, you are here to protect the interests of hon. Members on both sides of the House, and the fact is that neither side of the House has had notice that the Third Reading is to be taken. Hon. Members on neither side knew about it until the Whip apparently made a mistake and moved the Third Reading. The Orders of the Day are what matter, not the Whip. If it is not on the Order Paper for today, how can it be taken?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Certainly the Order Paper does not mention the subsequent stages, but I do not know what happens outside all I am concerned about is what happens on the Floor of the House. This Third Reading has been moved quite regularly, and I therefore put the Question.

Mr. Herbert Butcher (Lord Commissioner of the Treasury): I wonder whether can help the right hon. Gentleman. May I first say that if we have been guilty of any discourtesy, I at once apologise. I understood that we were conforming entirely to the normal practice of the House and that it was agreed, after consultation through the usual channels, that the Third Reading should be taken today. I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that is correct. If not, I tender him my most sincere apologies.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I quite accept the hon. Gentleman's explanation; I am sure there was no intention to deceive the House or to mislead us in any way. As for the usual channels, our private notice was to the effect that the Third Reading was not to be taken.

Mr. Nabarro: Then the Opposition Whip was wrong.

Mr. Ness Edwards: Whether the Whip was wrong or not, what governs us is what is on the Order Paper, and on the Order Paper there is no provision to take this business now. If we are to be chivied about, we must insist upon our rights, and I ask you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to protect the rights of hon. Members.

Mr. Butcher: With the leave of the House, may I again say to the right hon.
Gentleman that we had no intention of being discourteous. On the other hand, he will appreciate that if we were to anticipate the conclusion of the Committee stage and the reporting of the Bill to the House, we should be trespassing upon the prerogative of the House. Therefore, it is not possible for the Motion for the Third Reading to appear on the Order Paper until after the Committee and Report stages have been concluded.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The Government Whip may be a good Whip, but I should not regard him with the same confidence as an authority upon constitutional matters as I should regard yourself, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and I should like to have your guidance upon this point.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I know nothing about discussions through the usual channels. That is not within my province. The Third Reading was moved on the Floor of the House, but that Motion does not appear on the Order Paper because that stage has not been reached and it would have been impossible to put the Motion for the Third Reading upon the Order Paper. Nevertheless, it is quite regular, and I have now put the Question. The Third Reading having been moved, it is perfectly in order.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I should have thought that the official notice would at least have said, "and remaining stages." I should have thought that could have been done on the Order Paper. However, I accept your Ruling; I do not challenge it, and we are prepared to take the Third Reading now.

Mr. Kenneth Thompson: The Opposition were told last Thursday.

Mr. Ness Edwards: We have accepted the Whip's statement in a good spirit, and I do not see any reason why we should now have this hostility.
The Third Reading of this Bill gives us an opportunity of saying again one or two things about the Bill. What the Assistant Postmaster-General has failed to do is to answer this charge: Why it is that under this Bill he is raising £1 million more than is necessary to provide the ordinary commercial surplus on this particular service? That is a matter which the hon. Gentleman has evaded all through these discussions. He evaded it

on the Second Reading, he evaded it in Committee, and now that he has another opportunity, I hope that he will address his mind to that point.
The Bill provides for an increase in the commercial surplus of £1,350,000 in a full year. All that the hon. Gentleman ought to ask for on this service to maintain the customary commercial surpluns is £300,000. What he is really doing is to get out of this service £1 million, which he admits is taxation. On the Second Reading he admitted that it was taxation. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) frowns in his usual way and says, "Nonsense." The hon. Gentleman should look at the facts. I am sure that the Assistant Postmaster-General will agree that these are the facts. I am quite prepared to give way for him to deny that.

Mr. Nabarro: The right hon. Gentleman must not accuse me of saying, "Nonsense."

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not think that much of this is in order.

Mr. Nabarro: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I have said that this is not in order, and I cannot have a discussion continuing something which is clearly out of order.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I will put the point very shortly to the Assistant Postmaster-General. Will he explain what are his reasons and what is the justification for raising under this Bill £1 million more than is customarily necessary to provide for a commercial surplus on this service? It is a very simple point, and I hope that when he replies he will deal with it. We shall naturally not divide on the Third Reading.

5.55 p.m.

Mr. Gammans: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) has asked me why it is that, on the assumption that the House accepts these additional charges, we shall be raising about £1 million more than the deficit which now exists on this particular service. He has pointed out quite rightly that that is a surplus on the Post Office revenue as a whole and a surplus on this particular item as well.
What he is suggesting is that each service provided by the Post Office should really balance itself. He would like to see that, and so would I. It is a desirable thing, but some services make a loss. The worst, of course, is the telegraph service, which makes a loss all over the world and which, I am afraid, is a loss which will steadily increase. As the right hon. Gentleman knows only too well, there is a limit beyond which one cannot raise postal or telegraph charges because the law of diminishing returns then starts to operate.
So we start off with one particular service having a deficit which has to be made up by a surplus on another, unless the Post Office generally is to be run at a loss. We make a surplus on telephones and on the postal side, and we are hoping to do so on the postal orders as well. I quite appreciate that it does seem, at first sight, as if the increased charges which are being made produce a surplus for this particular service which is out of all proportion to the deficit, but the answer is that we have to regard the Post Office as a whole, and not only make it pay but also produce a reasonable commercial surplus, which every Postmaster-General wants to make and every Chancellor of the Exchequer insists on having.
It is for that reason that this particular service has been chosen. By an increase of a halfpenny we raise in the aggregate a pretty large sum of money. I do not think that anyone will argue that this is a service which cannot stand another halfpenny poundage, and that we are not justified in selecting this particular service for this additional charge. I hope that I have satisfied the right hon. Gentleman and the House that not only was this increase in poundage inevitable, but that it has been levied in a way which cannot by the greatest stretch of imagination be regarded as a hardship to anyone.

Mr. Hobson: Will the hon. Gentleman say when it is proposed to bring this into operation and how he proposes to collect the extra poundage?

Mr. Gammans: We had hoped to bring it in by 1st July, but 1st July has come and gone, and I cannot say when the Bill will receive the Royal Assent. I can make a promise that the increased

poundage will be imposed in time for the football season, which is 1st September.

Mr. R. E. Winterbottom: The end of August.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The Assistant Postmaster-General is a week behind time.

Mr. Gammans: As to how it will be actually imposed, the most effective way would be by new postal orders, but we have to use up existing postal orders first, and I must confess to the House that we have allowed the stocks of existing postal orders to run down. We have quite enough to carry on with, but we have not now the normal stocks of existing postal orders which we generally have, and so in anticipation of this Bill we shall be able to come on to the postal orders of higher poundage rather more quickly than we normally should have done.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (CHARGES)

5.58 p.m.

Mr. Hector McNeil: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the National Health Service (Charges for Dental Treatment) Regulations, 1952 (S.I., 1952, No. 1020), dated 23rd May, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23rd May, be annulled.
I think that the House will not disapprove if I say to the Minister of Health that we are all sorry about the illness at his home and hope that there will be a complete and speedy recovery.
If it is agreeable to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and to the House, we on this side hope that we may proceed on these Prayers as we have done before. There are eight Prayers on the Order Paper in the names of my hon. Friend and myself. There are, for Scotland and England, Prayers dealing with dental charges, charges relating to drugs and appliances, charges relating to hospital accommodation and outpatient departments, and to what we call amenity beds. I hope that by moving the first Prayer we may then have a general debate covering the range of the subject mater embodied in the other Prayers.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): If that meets the convenience of the House, I think that would be a very good thing to do.

Mr. McNeil: Perhaps it will also be for the convenience of the Whips if I say that it is not our intention to divide on the two Motions dealing with amenity beds. We anticipate that we shall get satisfactory information from the Minister upon those two sets of regulations. On this side, as on the Government side, we are anxious to see the best use made of amenity beds. However, unless the right hon. Gentleman is able to offer some evidence that Her Majesty's Government will shortly alter its lamentable policy as reflected in the other Regulations, we shall be obliged at the end of the debate to divide upon them.
It might be convenient if I dealt with the subject matter of the prescription charges as reflected in the Regulations covering England and Scotland.

Miss Margaret Herbison: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Since four of the eight Prayers with which we are dealing refer to Scotland, ought we not to have a Scottish Minister on the Government Front Bench?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Mr. McNeil: Be that as it may, would it not be within the normal usage of the House if, when this huge Department with a great Vote has four sets of Regulations before the House for which its Minister is exclusively responsible, the Government Front Bench were adorned by one of the seven Ministers who represent the Scottish Office?

The Minister of Health (Mr. Iain Macleod): On a point of order. The representative of the Scottish Office is on his way and does not have to be sent for. Anyone who could prophesy to within a minute or so the end of the debate which we have just had—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That may be an explanation and a comment, but it is not a point of order.

Mr. McNeil: I am indebted to the right hon. Gentleman, but from time to time we meet this difficulty. If the right hon.
Gentleman and his Parliamentary Secretary, who have huge difficulties, do not find it too much troublie to wait for a debate, let us hope that eventually one of the seven Ministers from the Scottish Office will do the House the courtesy of attending to its business.
I propose to deal mainly with the charges on prescriptions, although if my hon. Friends are fortunate in catching the eye of the Chair they will bring their specialist knowledge to bear—notably my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Messer) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Baird)—on the other Regulations.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Where is the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East?

Mr. McNeil: My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East will be here. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite had better contain their laughter. A Minister has an obligation to the House. Hon. Members are in a different position. My hon. Friend will be here in time and will be competent to deal with any interest that hon. Gentlemen opposite display in the subject.
I want first to deal with some aspects of the two sets of Regulations reflecting the 1s. prescription charge. I hope I am not being unreasonable in wanting the Minister to tell us—he was, understandably, a trifle coy at an earlier stage—what he hopes to save by the deterrent effect of these Regulations and what he hopes to gain in respect of the charges for prescriptions by doctors and hospital out-patient departments. The right hon. Gentleman must now have some kind of exact calculation, for he has now had a full month in which to scrutinise the workings of the scheme and, no doubt prodded by the Treasury, he has carefully watched the working of the parsimonious, niggardly and ill-conceived scheme by which he still intends to filch shillings from the purses of the sick and distressed.
I have here some figures which I confess I cannot pretend are typical. They come from a small sector of the population of a town of some 90,000 people, and the calculations are from pharmacists and are necessarily approximate. I do not want to argue that from a statistical point of view they are necessarily significant, but I want the House to agree that


even at this stage they must give us cause for concern about the operation of the Regulations.
From this sample I find that in June. 1952, the number of prescriptions is down by just under 5 per cent. compared with June, 1951. The House will note that I am talking about the number of prescriptions and not the value of the prescriptions. Later on I shall quote some figures relating to this point. Many of us must suspect—I do not think the right hon. Gentleman will fail to suspect it—that the general practitioner, who is, by and large, a warm and humane creature, will be concerned to save his patients charges whenever he can, and I have little doubt that in an appreciable number of cases the figures will eventually show that more than one item is put on the prescription form and that quantities prescribed are larger than has been the case previously.
Thus, we may find at the end of the day that there will be no appreciable net saving under these Regulations. At any rate, I am only able at this point to allude to the calculation of the number of prescriptions in June this year compared with June last year in this sector of the population, and I repeat that the figure is down by approximately 5 per cent.
Further—this is even more disturbing—I find that about 2 per cent. of the people in this sector who learn when presenting their prescriptions that there is a charge from which they have no hope or anticipation of escaping, do not return for their drugs. I also find that about 10 per cent. of them are asking for receipts. I do not know what proportion of them go to the National Assistance Board, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman or the hon. Lady wil be able to give the House some figures on that point later.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) has been good enough to supply me with some further figures obtained independently. To a surprisingly high degree they corroborate the figures I have taken from the samples available to me. I do not know that I am at liberty to quote the name of the firm. However, my hon. Friend's analysis shows that the number of prescriptions in June, 1952, showed a drop of 10 per cent. compared with June, 1951, and 20 per cent. compared with June, 1950. He says that the requests for

receipts are exceeding 5 per cent. He also discusses in some detail the type of patient who is being most affected by these Regulations. He says there is a definite hardship discernible in the case of old age pensioners, those suffering from acute chest complaints, including tuberculosis, diabetics and people suffering from ulcer conditions. These people have to pay 1s. or more practically every week, which is a drain on their already small income.
He goes on to state one case of a man suffering from a duodenal ulcer who required a weekly prescription, and who in one week had both of his children ill. I quite agree that that is not a general condition, but in such a case there would be a great hardship. This pharmacist gives some further figures about appliances, with which my hon. Friend will no doubt deal; but there is corroboration here that the sample I have given may be approximately typical.
It will not only be the concern of the House to try to find out from the Minister whether the figures are showing a general pattern of that type—I must agree that one cannot come to any conclusion with only the experience of one month, but they may indicate a tendency—but it will also be our concern to know whether the Minister has any kind of information on the type of patient—I mean not a reference to his condition but to his disease—who is falling inside these three categories. I doubt very much whether the right hon. Gentleman will yet have that information, but that is really the worry of every Member who has an interest in, and experience of, this subject.
It will be no economy and it will be a great injustice if people who are really ill are part of the 2 per cent. who are not going back for their prescriptions, or part of the 5 per cent. who, compared with June of last year, are no longer going to the pharmacist for their prescriptions. We all want to see the use of unnecessary drugs eliminated, but no one has offered hard, good evidence to the House showing that the abuses exist which some suspect. Lacking such evidence, this drop of 5 and 2 per cent. must be a worry to every hon. Member.
I hope the Minister will give us the figures for which I have asked so far as they are available. I hope that, in


making this calculation as to the saving, he will tell us frankly what the additional costs for printing and for personnel are likely to work out at. The cost of printing must be very substantial. I have here a collection of forms and circulars issued by the Government which was to set the people free. I do not pretend that my collection is necessarily complete, but there are 21 circulars and forms which doctors, nurses, dentists and patients are expected to comply with and to employ in consequence of these Regulations. Perhaps the Minister has a final figure, and he might like to tell the House how many circulars and forms he has been obliged to issue so as to secure compliance with these Regulations, which were to be a great saving.
Moreover, apart from the financial cost, the exasperation to sick people and highly trained technicians must be quite substantial. Experienced as we all are in Government jargon, there are some fairly good examples in these circulars. There is one in E.C.N. 97 which refers to the charges for drugs, and if I am not boring the House perhaps I might read this piece of English which relates to what the Leader of the House told us at one time was a simple Regulation:
Under the regulations, drugs and appliances will be deemed to be supplied on one occasion, notwithstanding that they are supplied at different times, if they are supplied at or following a visit or attendance and before a succeeding visit or attendance takes place.
The best is yet to come:
A repeat supply is not deemed to take place on the same occasion as the original supply, notwithstanding there has been no intervening visit or attendance.
It must be a great consolation to an over-worked doctor to have his conduct laid down for him so clearly and so completely. The chemists and the patients must be equally grateful.

Mr. J. K. Vaughan-Morgan: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would care to read the next paragraph in E.C.N. 97. That is very clear and simple.

Mr. McNeil: It is very clear and simple, but it does not refer to the operation of this new Regulation which we were told was to be simple. The hon. Member asked me to read the next paragraph and in fairness to him I quote it:

Doctors are asked not to increase the quantities normally supplied on any one occasion.
Had these Regulations not been operated by this Government, there would have been no need to give this warning. This proves what I have already indicated I suspect will happen and what I suspect every hon. Member opposite knows will happen—that a doctor who is concerned for someone who is ill and who is decently and warmly disposed towards that person will, despite this Regulation, try to make it easier for the patient, which professionally he should try to do because he hopes to make him or her well.
But this is by no means the only sample of involved and exasperating English. There is another from one of these circulars which I should like to put to the Minister. Earlier I asked him to tell us how many additional personnel he calculates will be necessary to see that these Regulations are obeyed. Here is a circular issued to hospital authorities, R.H.B. 52/56, which deals with charges for prescriptions to hospital outpatients, and this is an instruction from it:
Hospitals should arrange that an officer is available when outpatient clinics are being held to inform the patients claiming exemption whether, in fact, they are exempt or not.
It then goes on to say that records should be kept of all exemptions and the patient given a ticket or token at the dispensary to show that he is exempt. Then it goes on to talk about the collection of the charges and says:
It is important that, whatever arrangements are adopted in each hospital, they should be as simple and as inexpensive as possible, and should, in particular, be so devised as not to involve any substantial increases of staff or of administrative costs.
Is that just the natural caution of the right hon. Gentleman, which we should applaud? Or does it indicate that he expects that, on a busy afternoon at an outpatient department, it will not be possible to advise the patients and, much more difficult, to collect from the patients, unless there is a fairly substantial staff employed?
From time to time hon. Gentlemen opposite have worked themselves into paroxysms of righteous indignation about snoopers, but here is a new line of snoopers. Here is the snooper who has to sit down with the sick and suffering.
and perhaps dying, people in an outpatient department to see that the hospital authorities do not escape from the miserable obligation which the Minister places upon them of charging a shilling. The snooper has to see that no poor person in the outpatient department gets treatment and drugs without paying the charge enforced by these Regulations.
As the House was reminded at an earlier stage in the debate, there may not be a great deal of enthusiasm in outpatient departments for this scheme. I believe that the professional staff will say that their job is to cure and not collect. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham has more information on this subject. Perhaps he will be fortunate enough to catch the eye of the Chair, when he can inform the House about it. I have no evidence, except a speech, but I am told that some outpatient departments are not very zealous already about the collection of the shilling. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will tell us how he proposes—I cannot discover it from the circulars—otherwise than by snoopers, to check up on these outpatient departments. No documentary evidence is provided.
My hope is not that they will encourage it but that they will shame the right hon. Gentleman into giving what I know to be his well-disposed reaction to such a situation. It is another proof of how ill-conceived these Regulations are. If an outpatient department is concerned solely with its legitimate task of diagnosing, prescribing, advising and dispensing, there will not be any time for this nonsense, and there will be no enthusiasm for it. There is no means by which the Department of Health will be able to check up, other than by snoopers. Perhaps we might be told how many snoopers against the sick the right hon. Gentleman expects that the authorities will have to employ under the Regulations which he has now been operating for a month.
I have indicated that we shall feel ourselves obliged, unless there is some change of policy or change of heart in the Government, to vote against these Regulations. I hope I have shown that two of them are unjust, administratively clumsy and probably will not yield the revenue which the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues at one time expected. If the printing costs are taken into

account, and if a calculation is made for the time employed of busy professional people like dentists and pharmacists, we suspect that the saving will be very small indeed. Therefore, on administrative grounds as well as on moral and social grounds, we shall divide against these iniquitous and ridiculous Regulations.

6.26 p.m.

Mr. A. Blenkinsop: I beg to second the Motion.
We are opposed on principle on this side of the House to the charges brought forward in these Regulations. We have expressed our opposition to the principle many times in this House. It is becoming more and more clear each day that the results of these charges are what we expected they would be. They are not without danger, and they are proving to be a barrier between patients and the professional people concerned.
Today we are emphasising rather more the administrative arrangements which are set out in detail in these Regulations, and I want to turn to certain matters arising from the detailed administrative proposals as well as to some of the consequences that flow from them. There has been a very real amount of administrative muddle and discontent throughout the service, following the introduction of these charges. Nowhere is that more clear than in the hospitals, where there is a general lack of understanding how on earth the Regulations are to be operated without, in very many cases, avoiding collecting the charge altogether. I am glad indeed that that should be the case. The tragedy is that today—

Mr. Richard Fort: Is the hon. Gentleman trying to encourage hospitals not to collect the charge and to go against the will of this House? Is that what he is arguing?

Mr. Blenkinsop: Certainly. If hospitals are confronted with the problem, as many of them are, of patients coming into the hospitals and of the hospitals being officially required to secure the collecting of the charge before treatment is given, I certainly would not blame a hospital for saying that they must avoid—

Hon Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Joseph T. Price: Perhaps I can take this issue out of the


realm of theory by a personal experience which I had on Monday of this week. I had occasion, on account of a slight disability, to go to one of the great London hospitals. I was received with all the kindness and efficiency by the technical staff that one expects at these institutions. Eventually, after a painful quarter of an hour, the surgeon suggested to me that I might do with a sedative, and that he would prescribe one for me which I would get at the dispensary.
I went to the dispensary, feeling rather shaky—the dentist's chair is not a pleasant experience—and I had not a shilling. They said, "Get a shilling stamp out of the machine," but nobody could change my £1 note. They said, "Go to the office. You will get it there." I went to the office, where the bewildered official in charge said, "I am very sorry. People are coming here all day for shillings. What can I do? You can go to a shop in Horseferry Road." Nobody could change my £1 note. I can imagine people, after a distressing experience, being compelled to travel round the streets—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must protect the right of the hon. Gentleman who is addressing the House.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for a most moving example of what we all know is happening in many hospitals. Many constituents of mine are not in the happy position of my hon. Friend of having a £1 note to change, and there have been many calls on Labour Party rooms in my constituency asking for the loan of is, to enable them to get the prescription. I am glad to say that in many cases now hospitals are not insisting on payment.
It is a tragedy, however, that so many professional men today, dentists as well as doctors, particularly dispensing doctors, are having to spend so much more of their time upon the administrative side when they ought to be devoting the whole of their time to the job for which they are qualified. It is an amazing thing that the party opposite, who have always claimed that they have so much objection to red tape and form filling, have through the charges added an appreciable number of forms to be filled in. Much of this would have been quite unnecessary if the advice given on this side of the House

had been followed and the proposals rejected at the proper time.
Through these Regulations we are making the professional men into tax gatherers, and there is no section of the community which is less popular in the minds of the general public than the tax gatherers. It is a great pity that this attitude of mind should have been developed in relation to the professional services which we have always regarded as being of great consequence, and we would have hoped for a higher moral standard than is being forced upon them by these Regulations.
Now I want to turn to two aspects of these Regulations that are of special significance. The first point I want to consider is what action the Minister is taking to judge the effects of these Regulations. I think he said himself at one time, perhaps before he took over his present office, that he was most anxious to find out to just what extent the charges imposed were having a deterrent effect upon the general public, and also to just what extent the sums envisaged were being raised by these Regulations. He said he was keeping a careful eye on the matter because he was most anxious to keep closely in touch with the position.
I want to ask him, particularly in relation to the 1s. prescription charge, what method he is proposing to adopt to ensure that he has effective and reliable information about the resulting effects of the charges upon the general public. I know that he can say that we have the information about the number of prescriptions dispensed. I hope that he will be able to give that to the House periodically so that we may judge the effect in that regard, but I think he will be the first to agree that that in itself is not sufficient.
We know that there may be calls upon the doctor which do not need prescriptions. At the moment there are no returns showing how many people are visiting doctors. We want to know, too, what effect these Regulations are having in turning people to more self-medication, which is a matter of great importance and of natural concern to us all.

Mr. Powell: Would the hon. Gentleman elaborate his point that these Regulations might result in an increase of self-medication? I take it that


self-medication means the purchase of self-prescribed medicines. In most cases, if not in all cases, the medicines so purchased would cost more than the prescriptions.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Not necessarily. It might well mean, however, that they were not getting the proper prescriptions. I should have thought the hon. Gentleman would have been the first to agree that we should be anxious to avoid any barrier between the patient and the doctor in regard to proper medical advice and proper prescriptions.

Colonel Malcolm Stoddart-Scott: Answer the question.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I was arguing that surely it is the desire of hon. Members opposite, as well as those of us on this side, that we should have more information about the result of this scheme upon patients all over the country and, in particular, its effect upon the frequency of visits to the doctor by different categories of persons. For instance, we have a particular interest in the position with regard to children at one end of the scale and older people at the other end. What is the effect of these prescription charges upon the frequency of visits to the doctor?

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: Answer the question.

Mr. Blenkinsop: If the hon. and gallant Member will show a certain amount of courtesy, I hope the Minister will say that he is as anxious to have this information as anybody. Some of this information used to be available. The Social Survey Department used to provide what is called the "Sickness Survey." I have a copy of the quarterly reports that are made available through the Report of the Registrar-General, which is a comprehensive document. It gives a lot of valuable information about the extent of sickness in the general population, both sickness which is so serious as to warrant calling a doctor and sickness dealt with at home without any call upon the doctor. This is split up into different categories of younger and older people.
It is extraordinary that at this time when we most need this information I understand that it has been stopped. I do not blame the Minister, because I

believe that the order for stopping the collection of this information was given by his immediate predecessor, the Leader of the House. Could we have a worse time for stopping the collection of what is vital information if we are to know the facts, and not merely hearsay? We all have the information from our own areas. We have had much discussion with chemists, and others; we all have our own opinions about what is happening; but we need a real attempt to get a scientific answer, as far as that is possible, as to the amount and extent of calls upon doctors in these different categories.
The Minister responsible has allowed this most valuable information to be stopped for the sake of saving £28,000 a year, which was the total cost of running the "Sickness Survey" under the Social Service Department. Hon. Members on all sides have paid tribute to the value of those statistics. The "Economist" and other newspapers have used the information on many occasions and it has been of the utmost value. I want the right hon. Gentleman to say that he proposes to put right this appalling error of judgment on the part of his predecessor by reinstating this service without any delay, by reviewing it, and by seeing whether it should not be extended because of the special need today to have the most accurate and detailed information.
It is a shocking thing that at this time all this information should have dried up. In fact, I do not know whether, even if the right hon. Gentleman gave the order today, it would be possible to collect together the staff quickly enough to reinstate this service. One might, indeed, properly feel that there is some much less satisfactory motive behind the action of his predecessor. Was it that he did not want us to know the effect of these charges or was it just complete incapacity to understand the needs of the service as a whole? I suppose that it would be more charitable to assume that it was due to the general ignorance he displayed so frequently in the passage of the Bill through the House. I ask the right hon. Gentleman's successor, to whom I give credit for having much more serious interest in this matter, to repair the damage that has already been done and to give an order without delay that the whole of this work should be re-started and, if possible, extended.
My right hon. Friend has mentioned to some extent the question of the cost of all this. He rightly mentioned that extra costs have been incurred in the printing of the great mass of circulars and forms that now have to be filled in, in addition to all that we had before. There are all the forms that the dispensing doctor now has to complete, the stamps that have to be cancelled, and all that kind of work. I take a rather more serious view, however, of the effect of these charges upon the demands of the different professional bodies for extra remuneration.
There are Members on the other side who can speak with some responsibility for some of the other professions. In particular, I hope that the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Linstead) will be able to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, and to express the feelings of the pharmacists. Their views have been put in writing in their journals with very great vigour, but we have not heard the hon. Member putting their point of view with quite the same vigour and accuracy as we might have expected. No doubt he has been waiting for the occasion of today to do so.

Mr. McNeil: And to vote against the Government.

Mr. Blenkinsop: We shall listen to his views with great interest and we shall welcome his support in the Division Lobby later in the day. We have the clear understanding that the National Pharmaceutical Union have agreed to put in a fresh demand for increased remuneration because of the effect of these charges, they expect, in reducing their total turnover and because of the extra staff they will require to do the work that is necessitated by these Regulations. We must take account of the extra remuneration that is likely to flow from that demand and from the demands of other professional bodies, for which I have no qualification to speak, who will, no doubt, be putting in their demands for the same reason. We must take account of all this in considering what the charges will be on the service.
Also, we ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell us to what extent he estimates that the National Assistance Board will be required to make extra payments in reimbursement of these charges, which must clearly be set off

against any saving on the health side. It would be quite ridiculous if we were to look only at one side of the picture. I emphasise once more that we on this side feel, as we have felt right through, that these charges are having a serious effect on the whole status of the professions involved. The whole hope that we had of developing a better standard of health treatment is being endangered by these charges.
We would even at this moment ask the right hon. Gentleman, now that he has come into this unhappy estate, to take this his first opportunity to say how unwelcome this whole estate is to him. I hope he will repudiate even some of his earlier speeches. I hope he will say that, so far from liking the whole concept of charges, as he said before, he regards them as of a purely temporary character and he is prepared to review them. I hope that, if he is not able to say today, as I fear he will not be able to do, that he is going to withdraw them altogether, he will tell us that he is prepared to review them in the light of the information that we all have about their effect, and that he will take the very earliest opportunity of bringing in revised Regulations which will at least exempt many of the categories of persons—old people, children and others—who are most severely hit by these charges.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Linstead: I must, first, declare an indirect interest that I have in the subject of the debate, because, as the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop) has indicated, I happen to be the secretary of the Pharmaceutical Society, although that society is not engaged in any way in the negotiations in connection with the remuneration of chemists.
Having listened to the speeches of the right hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) and his hon. Friend, I am bound to say that there is a note of very considerable exaggeration in the case that they have put to the House. One cannot help getting the impression from what they have said, and the way in which they have said it, that there is in the background an attempt to encourage those responsible not to make these Regulations work. It is unfortunate that in the House of Commons, which has already by legislation decided that charges of this


kind shall be the law of the land, responsible Members, both of them ex-Ministers, should publicly have indicated, for example, that hospital officers were not loyally trying to carry out the law of the land—

Mr. A. C. Manuel: They could not carry it out.

Mr. Linstead: —and by the manner of their speeches, if anything, encouraged those people not to carry it out.

Mr. McNeil: I hope the hon. Member agrees that I tried to show why I thought the Regulations were unworkable, and I gave some experience to show why I thought they were unworkable. My argument was that the Government had no right to embarrass the authorities with unworkable Regulations.

Mr. Linstead: All I can say—it is well within the recollection of the House—is that the general impression which would have been gathered by anyone listening to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend was that if there was anything that could be done to make it difficult for these new Regulations to be brought into operation, they would be very glad to see it done and would, indeed, encourage it.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Would not the hon. Member agree that if a hospital is placed in such a position as in the sort of cases I have described, it would be the essential duty of the hospital, concerned with the health of its patients, to ensure that they did not have to pay the 1s. charge?

Mr. Iain Macleod: This is a most important matter. May I put this to the right hon. Gentleman? A law being on the Statute Book, does he accept that, whether the hospitals and the healing professions like that law or not, they should do everything in their power to make it work?

Mr. McNeil: That is very fair, and I should certainly think it improper if anything I said could be taken as abetting them; but the right hon. Gentleman would be very quick to admit that there might be a conflict in both their duties, and they have professional duties which they cannot escape.

Mr. Linstead: It is obvious to all of us that in a matter of this kind doctors, pharmacists and hospital officers from

time to time will be faced with individual cases where they will, naturally, as professional men and as human beings, allow their sense of charity to over-ride statutory obligations; but these cases are rather exceptions, and it ought not to be accepted that it is to be the general rule.

Mr. Manuel: Does the hon. Member really mean what he has said, that the practitioner would allow his sense of charity to override his statutory obligations? Is that the sense he conveyed, that it would be charity?

Mr. Linstead: I will move on to another subject, but the hon. Member must remember that charity has a narrow and a wide connotation, and I was using the word "charity" in the widest possible connotation.

Mr. Frederick Messer: I do not want to interrupt, but a misleading effect is being created. The doctor has his job to do; the collection of prescriptions is not his job, it is that of someone else.

Mr. Linstead: I may pass on from that by saying that the occasional hard case will be met in the way in which any of us here would meet the occasional hard case. I do not think the occasional hard case should be made the occasion for suggesting that these Regulations are unworkable.
The first point I want to make is that I believe it is a matter of surprise to all of us in this House, and a matter of congratulation to the Minister and to the Ministry, that this quite substantial administrative provision has been brought in with so little friction and so much smoothness. I can speak from experience, first of all as a Member of this House. I may be an exception, but my post-bag has contained one letter only concerning the introduction of this new scheme.
I can speak also as one who has had daily contact with pharmacists in this country. I have been amazed at the smooth way in which they have been able to do their part, not merely in collecting the shilling, but in acting as public relations officers for the Minister in explaining to the public how the scheme works and why it has to work. I hope I may carry the House with me in saying that a word of thanks is due to them for having shouldered that burden.
So far as the hospitals are concerned, it may very well be that there are teething troubles of one kind and another and we must all have been moved by the picture of the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) walking about Westminster with £1 in his pocket and having no opportunity of changing it. But that is a minor example of a creaking of the machine which experience will surely cure.
The right hon. Member for Greenock produced some figures, which he was fair enough to say were representative of a small sample and might not be generally representative, to show that there was only a 5 per cent. saving to be effected by the new charges.

Mr. McNeil: A 5 per cent. drop in the number of prescriptions.

Mr. Linstead: A 5 per cent. drop in the number of prescriptions only; and he was suggesting that the saving might be even less because of more generous prescribing on each form. For what it is worth—I do not pretend at this moment to be able to draw any worth-while inference from the figures—my information in respect of Scotland is that the average drop at the moment is about 15 per cent. But I believe that after three weeks or a month it is quite impossible to draw any really serious conclusion from statistics of this kind. We are all familiar with the good resolutions which are made when the Tobacco Duty is increased about the smoking of tobacco. There may be a temporary fall, but it is followed by a re-establishment of the old habits.

Dr. Barnett Stross: Can the hon. Member say whether the comparison he made was between this June and June last year?

Mr. Linstead: The comparison of 15 per cent. is not between June of this year and June of last year; it is between June of this year and the average for the whole of last year. From that point of view, it may be challenged on the ground that June is one of the healthiest months of the year. That is another reason for saying that it is far too early yet to start drawing any substantial lessons from statistical returns.

Mr. McNeil: Lest I did not make it plain, my comparison was between June, 1952 and June, 1951.

Mr. Linstead: That can now be on the record. The two substantial facts which have come to my notice are these. Contrary to the right hon. Gentleman's experience, the demand for receipts has been extremely small—very few indeed. It is interesting to notice that the number of medicines made up but not called for is. I would agree, at present round about 2 per cent., but that is not substantially more—

Mr. William Keenan: Mr. William Keenan (Liverpool, Kirkdale) rose—

Mr. Linstead: I am taking up the time of the House and other Members wish to speak; I had better continue.
That figure of 2 per cent. must be compared with the general tendency under the National Health Insurance Act for about 0·5 to 1 per cent. of medicine not to be called for because the patient, after a day or two, found he was getting better, or there may have been other reasons. Always there were a certain number of uncollected medicines. It is significant that in the terms of remuneration of chemists the Minister has provided for a 1 per cent. non-collection, a 1 per cent. wastage. So I do not think we can draw any significant conclusion from the fact that in some areas 2 per cent. of the medicines are not being collected.
The other fact which I think can be noted is that on the whole there has been a larger fall in the consumption of medicine in the North than in the South. I do not pretend to know why, but, generally speaking there have been fewer prescriptions presented in the North.
I wish to put four questions to the Minister relating to the content of the Regulations which I think might help the Service if they are answered. The first question relates to the position of resident nurses in hospitals. My information is that the practice of hospitals at present varies. If a resident nurse is seriously ill and is put to bed in the staff sick bay, obviously she is treated as an in-patient and makes no payment. Suppose that she has some quite minor ailment for which some prescription may be necessary, but an ailment which does not prevent her from continuing her duty so that she actually corresponds to an outpatient. I should like to know from the Minister whether or not the hospital


should make a charge in those cases where the nurse is in effect an outpatient. The practice varies, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend would be the first to agree that it is desirable that there should be a general practice followed throughout the country.
Secondly, can my right hon. Friend explain the reasons for a divergence between the hospital Regulations and what I may call the shop Regulations? If hon. Members have Statutory Instruments Nos. 1021 and 1023 in their hands, they will notice, near the bottom of the first page of No. 1021, which relates to shops, the words:
the sum of one shilling respect of the drugs and appliances. …
whereas near the bottom of the first page of No. 1023 the words are:
the sum of one shilling in respect of the drugs. …
but not appliances. That relates to hospitals.
The effect is that the out-patient at a hospital pays 1s. for his drugs but if he requires only a bandage, or cotton wool or lint, he gets it free whereas the patient who goes to the chemist's shop, has, if he requires a bandage, cotton wool or lint, to pay 1s. for it. I have not been able to understand precisely why there should be that difference in the case of the outpatient as compared with that of the domiciliary patient.
A point which has been brought to my notice has some substance but it may relate to so small a number of cases as not to call for administrative action. It is the case—and this is my third question—which requires prescriptions that run on to more than one form. I had a case from Wales brought to my notice the other day in which the prescription ran on to three forms.
I do not think that such cases are frequent. I have had only one brought to my notice. But when three pieces of paper are presented three separate shillings have to be paid. That was never the intention, I think, of the Minister or the Regulations. I wonder whether it might not be possible to provide for some form of continuation sheet or something of that kind which does not count as a separate form so that what was clearly intended will

apply and the patient will have to pay only 1s. in such circumstances.
My fourth question is perhaps a more specialised one. It relates to quite a little group of hospitals, some of them rather important ones. They are the disclaimed hospitals, hospitals which for one reason or another were not taken over by the Minister. Some were hospitals run by religious orders; at least one was connected with the trade union movement; and there are others. In some of those hospitals it has until now been possible for patients to be notionally the patients of the hospital doctor. He has written a prescription for them on a National Health Service form, and it has been dispensed in the hospital dispensary under contract with the executive council, and that executive council has paid the hospital for those medicines.
It has been brought to my attention that one hospital receives about £1,000 a year from the National Health Service in respect of medicines dispensed in that way. If 1s. for each of those prescriptions has to be paid either by the patients or the hospital, it will cost them about £30 a month. Those patients are in-patients. If they were in a State hospital they would not have to pay, there would be no question of a charge. They are being cared for free of charge to the State. They have hitherto, by an arrangement with the State, been able to get their medicines free of charge. I do not think it unreasonable to suggest that the Minister might inquire into the possibility of that arrangement continuing in those cases.
Those are the four questions to which I hope my right hon. Friend may give some reply later. I conclude by saying that I do not believe that we can at the moment assess how these Regulations will affect the future of the Health Service. It is quite clear that the charges are unpopular, and the present Leader of the Opposition, when he first made the announcement in this House that these things would have to be done in the national interest, quite clearly recognised that they would be unpopular. When the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) resigned from the Ministry of Health, he quite clearly recognised that they would be unpopular. It has fallen upon the party to which I belong to see that these essential but unpopular things are done.
Nevertheless, my own impression is that the start has been so good, the administrative difficulties have been so small, that we shall find the new arrangements settling down as part of the normal functioning of the Health Service, and that, at any rate so far as the charge on prescriptions is concerned, it may be that even in a few months' time—

Mr. Blenkinsop: I hope the hon. Member will say something about the claim which I understand the profession is to make for payment to cover the extra charges of administering this scheme.

Mr. Linstead: In that case, I shall have to add a postcript to my peroration, if that is permissible. I was about to conclude by saying that in a very short time this will be accepted as a normal part of the functioning of the Health Service.
With regard to the point raised by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East, I understand that a claim has been put in by the National Pharmaceutical Union for a possible increase in remuneration if it is found, as a result of experience, that the chemists' overheads are being substantially increased in relation to their remuneration because of these charges. All I can say is that I once heard the secretary of a trade union say, "When you are negotiating with any employers the great thing is always to have a claim in." Some Members opposite may be more experienced in that matter than I am. The chemists at the moment are most loyally accepting and carrying out this obligation.

7.7 p.m.

Mr. William Keenan: It is so long since I had an opportunity of addressing the House that I feel almost like asking for the indulgence which is requested for a maiden speech. I wish to follow what the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Linstead) said, because he made some very useful observations with which many of us would agree. I take exception, however, to what he said about the chemists. He told us that an allowance of 1 per cent. was being made to cover costs which may occur in the making up of a prescription.
The hon. Member said that the position, so far as he knew it professionally, was that 2 per cent. of prescriptions were

wasted. Does the hon. Member know that there is no wastage? So far as I can gather from inquiries I made last week, the chemists do not make up the prescription now until the public have paid the charge.

Mr. Linstead: The hon. Member must not quarrel with me. The figure of 2 per cent. was produced by the right hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil). He stated that his inquiries showed that a possible 2 per cent. of the medicines were not collected. It is with his right hon. Friend that the hon. Member must quarrel, not with me.

Mr. McNeil: The hon. Gentleman agreed that he had a similar figure.

Mr. Keenan: What I have been told by those who have the information is that as a result of early experience the chemists do not now make up the prescription until the charge is paid because some patients do not come back for it. That is an indication to me, though perhaps not to the Minister, who does not take the same point of view, that such patients cannot afford the charge. The Minister would say that they are not in need of the prescription.
I will give the Minister an example. A chemist told me that two days before our conversation a woman who was entitled to insulin had come to his shop. The insulin was there, the chemist showed it to me, but the woman had not 1s. to pay for it. I do not know what happened; it was there waiting for her to collect. There must obviously have been poverty or inability to pay at the time. I do not think that under any circumstances a patient should be put to any delay in receiving insulin required for treatment.
I suppose that the average individual who has means, or who is in employment, will not be distressed by this charge. But I am concerned about the 3½ million older people receiving contributory pensions who are not entitled to supplementary assistance or who do not receive it. There are many who could get such assistance if they made a claim, but they do not claim; and I gather from the number of chemists whom I have visited that there is a large reduction in the number of elderly people who formerly collected medicines.
I continued my inquiries last weekend at the Assistance Board office and saw the area officer. So far as he was concerned, he told me, there had not been a great disturbance. But he admitted that there had not been a great many people who had called to collect 1s. I think that is due, not only to the lack of knowledge on their part, but the lack of assistance and advice from the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of National Insurance.
I cannot worry the Minister about the National Assistance aspect of the matter, because that is not his concern. But I saw no posters or other information displayed in the Assistance Board office which could have been a help to anyone. In the post offices I visited I have seen a small card which I suppose might be considered to be a poster, but I had to look for it to find it.
It has been suggested by the hon. Member for Putney that there has not been the call for receipts which the chemists had anticipated. That may be true. But is the Minister aware that it is difficult to say off-hand, and without making expensive inquiries, what percentage of elderly people there are among the patients of an average medical practitioner? I think it true to say that generally speaking, many elderly people visit their doctor regularly and I think they will not do so if they cannot pay the 1s. for the prescription. If they are dependent on their pensions, and are not entitled to any supplementary assistance, that 1s. would have to come out of their pension; and nearly 80 per cent. of the pensioners in this country are not entitled to National Assistance, or at any rate, they do not claim it.
As one who has been concerned with these matters for the last 30 years, I would say to the Minister that a number of these people, because of their lack of means and the other difficulties which I have already mentioned, will become indifferent and will not bother. The consequence will be that some complaints suffered by elderly people, which might have been dealt with in the early stages, will not be treated. That may lead to serious consequences and even to accellerating their death. When the National Health Service Bill was going through its various stages, the tragic

thing to me was how often hon. Members opposite seemed to fail to understand how the average worker lived and died.
It was obvious that the Parliamentary Secretary did not know very much about that. She has not had sufficient experience to prepare her for the important position she occupies today. I do not know the background of the Minister and I am under some misapprehension about his capacity in this field. He has the theoretical knowledge, but does he understand the problem from the point of view of the working class?
One of the greatest boons to parents under the free Health Service was that they had no longer to worry about whether they could afford to take a child to the doctor. Now, a parent with three, or four, or five children will have to face the difficulties created by the increasing cost of food, as well as this additional charge which they will have to pay when they take their children to the doctor. We are in danger of returning to the state when parents will not take their children to a doctor, because they will have to pay, even though the amount demanded is comparatively small.
If that happens it will be a serious matter for the health of the community. It may mean that children will develop complaints which will affect them all their lives, and which, had they received proper attention, could have been prevented. It must be remembered that in a large family the payment of is, for each child becomes a difficult matter even with the assistance provided by the the family allowance. That is something which must be faced.
It is regrettable that we have to debate these Regulations at so early a stage when we are not in possession of the information and experience that we shall have later, when the Regulations have been in operation for a period. But so far as I can gather, there has been a reduction in the number of people who visit the doctor. I will give the Minister the benefit of the information I obtained from doctors whom I interviewed. One doctor told me that he had experience a 30 per cent. to 35 per cent. reduction in the number of his patients; although, of course, it may be argued that this is


the time of the year when a reduction may be expected.
Another doctor told me that the reduction in the number of his patients was about 15 per cent. Yet another doctor told me that he was afraid of the consequences which would follow the imposition of this charge. He thought that poor people would stay away from his surgery. But he said that it did give him more time to look after the patients who did come, because he might have only 20 people to treat instead of 30.
The Minister should pay close attention to this problem. The health of the people is his responsibility. I fear that as a result of these charges some children may be seriously neglected. I do not suggest that parents will deliberately neglect their children, but we know that many of them are hard pressed and will hesitate before paying a few shillings. We shall have to make up for that later.
Other hon. Members who wish to speak have more knowledge of the hospital services than I have. I have mentioned the difficulties of the parents and the plight of the elderly. Another consideration is this charge to the outpatient. I do not think that the Minister, his predecessor in office, or the Parliamentary Secretary appreciate the position. Many out-patients at hospitals have been injured or have suffered illness for a lengthy period. As a consequence many of them have ceased to be breadwinners. They have to depend on our social services. During this period of illness many are forced to go on to the National Assistance. They are not in a position to pay the 1s. charge.
I should like to remind the Minister, because he was not the Minister at the time, that we objected to the refusal to exempt T.B. cases. I am convinced that great hardship will result and that many people will be caused serious difficulty. I am afraid that there will be difficulties at the hospitals. I cannot imagine anything worse than that people should be compelled to be outpatients at hospitals because there is no accommodation and that—because they are out-patients—they should be charged when, otherwise, they would not have been.
For these reasons, the Minister should think again about this matter. I hope that he will give serious consideration to

what is said during this debate. The reason why these proposed charges were not put into effect by the Socialist Government was that we were convinced that serious difficulties and wrongs would result. For all these reasons I hope that the Minister will realise the gravity of the problems involved and that he will give further consideration to the matter.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. Richard Fort: The hon. Member for Kirkdale (Mr. Keenan), who speaks with great feeling and knowledge of the difficulties of our old folks, must always be listened to with attention. But, as one who has some knowledge of an industrial constituency, I suggest that he exaggerates the old folks' ignorance and lack of understanding of how they can be helped by the National Assistance Board. I certainly have not found that among my constituents.
It has been my experience that the dentists, doctors and pharmacists have done admirable work in making known to those who might be entitled to help from the National Assistance Board the fact that they have that right. It has also been my experience that the National Assistance Board has found that the Regulations are working fairly easily, though, like the hon. Gentleman, I have had the experience of being told that they have not been called upon very often.
It is a strange comment on this debate that the two principal speakers who opened it could not find much to do but talk about such matters as the English of some of the circulars. The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop), who, I am sorry to see, is not here now, talked about doctors having to spend more time on administration than on healing. We have heard that complaint from doctors under the régime of Socialist Ministers of Health. It is a fair comment on the adequacy of these Regulations that none of the principal speakers opposite has been able to find much to criticise in detail in the Regulations themselves or in the explanatory notes sent out with them.
There are one or two points which I wish to ask the Minister to explain. I wish to draw attention to the pamphlet entitled, "General Dental Services" E.C.N. 99. On the last page, in


Appendix III, there is a heading, "Application by Patients for National Assistance." I should like to ask why, in paragraph 2, the instruction is:
The patient should not be invited to sign Part 12 of Form E.C.17 (revised) or Part 1 of Form E.C.60 at this stage."?
I hope that that is in no way an effort to discourage the dentists from making known to those who may have to take advantage of National Assistance their rights in this connection.
There is another point in the same Appendix, in paragraph 3, which says:
The National Assistance Board has agreed that, where a patient is entitled to a grant of National Assistance, payment will be made on the dentist's notification that he now requires payment, whether that is before he undertakes the work or after he completes it.
Again, I hope that the arrangements between my right hon. Friend's Department and the National Assistance Board are such that there will be no question of work being held up on someone who is having to receive help from the National Assistance Board and that this Regulation, which, on the face of it, is humane and sensible, will allow prompt payment to be made to the dentist and, therefore, prompt work to be done on the patient.
Although we have to make these economies and carry through the intention of the Act, I am sure that we all wish to see that it is run in as humane a way as the Regulations set out to achieve. When hon. Gentlemen opposite attacked the Act, as they did for days on end—and they are now going through the argument again—they were always asking for us to forget, and perhaps they themselves genuinely forgot, that they were the originators of this scheme. It was they who said in the first place that charges had to be imposed in order to put a ceiling on the National Health Act.
With a few honourable exceptions—and we have seen them in the House this afternoon—hon. Members opposite adopted a very different tone in the debate last year, when their party were introducing charges, from that which we have heard from them day after day this year. The hon. Lady the Member for the Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) is an honourable exception. I know that last year she opposed her own Government with almost the same vigour that

she shows now, though she did not carry it to the extent of voting against them.

Mr. Speaker: I do not like interrupting the debate or constraining it within unduly restricted limits, but perhaps I ought to say that we must not fight the battle of the Bill again. That has been passed by the House, and it is not in order for the House to impugn one of its own decisions, except on a Motion for a repeal. I wish it to be a useful debate, but I would ask hon. Members if they would, on this occasion, confine themselves as much as possible to the administration of the scheme as set out in these Regulations, which would be of more value than fighting the old battle again, besides being in order.

Mr. Fort: I am very grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for reminding us all of what is in order, and particularly for placing emphasis on the fact that this is the law, and that it is our duty now to do what we can to make sure that these Regulations carry out what is the present wish of the House.

7.31 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: I want, first of all, to draw attention to the Ministers on the Front Bench opposite. We have here four Regulations for England and Wales, and four for Scotland. Since the beginning of the debate, we have had the Minister of Health and the Parliamentary Secretary listening to the points put forward both from this side of the House and their own, and, as the debate went on, one of the three Joint Under-Secretaries from the Scottish Office took his place on the Front Bench.
We have always understood that, since there was such a great addition of strength to the Scottish Office, we would get more of the time of the Secretary of State. The matters we are now discussing are of first importance to the Scottish people, and I am sure that my hon. Friends on this side would like me, in case they are not called, to enter a protest that the Secretary of State for Scotland did not think it worth while to take his place along with the Joint Under-Secretary and the Minister of Health during our discussion of these Regulations.
My right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend who preceded me have dealt


mainly with administration under these Regulations, but I should like to point out that the administration of these Regulations has an effect on thousands of people. If we wish to pray against these Regulations, indeed, if we wish—even if we do not win in the Division Lobbies tonight—to make a case that will cause the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland to think again, then we have to deal, not merely with administration, but with the effect of that administration on certain categories of patients. I therefore hope that what I intend to say will be in order.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop) was speaking, he suggested that there was a danger of people reverting to self- medication, and there were sneers about that on the other side of the House. An hon. Member opposite, who, I understand, is also a doctor, wanted my hon. Friend to be forthright and tell him what he meant by self-medication. This is just another instance of how divorced hon. Members opposite are from the way in which the ordinary people of this country live. Before we had the National Health Service, many mothers would use an old cough mixture bottle which somebody else had got when a child developed a cough, which might be the very worst thing to do. That is self-medication.
A mother might provide a gargle which, if a doctor were called, might be proved to be a very good thing, but there might be all sorts of cases in which an ordinary salt gargle would not be the right thing. That is self-medication, and it has very dangerous results indeed. I should have thought that no one would have questioned my hon. Friend about what was meant about self- medication. If I had more time, I could give the hon. Member many more examples of what working-class mothers did before the National Health Service Bill was passed.
The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Linstead) said that he understood that, in the north, the number of prescriptions had decreased to a much greater extent than in the south, and he was not able to obtain any reason for this. I think that we on this side can give him a reason. In the north, we have over 100,000 unem- ployed at the present time, and the 1s.
for the prescription for such people will be difficult indeed to find. In the north, we have far more lower wage earners than in the south, and, again, they will think a few times before they ask for a prescription for which they have to pay 1s.
There are a number of other points on administration with which I should have liked to deal, but, in spite of what the hon. Gentleman opposite said, I feel that, concerning the difficulties of administration, even including the extra clerical work placed on professional men who ought to be giving their energies to the prevention and curing of disease, my right hon. and hon. Friends have made that point clear without further elaboration from me.
I wish to devote most of my time to the position of the industrially disabled under these Regulations. The industrially disabled are being treated differently from, the war disabled. To get their appliances, they first have to fill in a number of forms, and the form filling which has to be done—and I have here a wallet with copies of all the forms—under a Government which derided form filling for six and a half years, is incredible. These forms ought to be posted all over the country. The war disabled, after filling in their forms, may get their drugs or appliances free of charge, provided that the drug or appliance is needed because of the war disability. If their illness is due to any other cause, even the war disabled have to pay their 1s. under these Regulations.
Since 1948, we have tried to treat the war disabled and the industrially disabled in the same way. Wherever there has been a change in the money that was paid to the war disabled as a pension, or to the industrially disabled under the industrial injuries scheme, everything possible has been done to ensure that they go side by side and that the money received each week would be exactly the same.
We have a change under these Regulations. Under them, the war disabled have been treated meanly, and the industrially disabled have been treated in a far worse way. I know quite a lot about the industrially disabled, and these men are being asked to pay for all their drugs by the 1s. prescription, and they are also being asked to pay for their appliances.
I have a letter here that came from one of my industrially disabled constituents, who says he is sending me a copy of a letter which he has sent to the Ministry of National Insurance after he had found out what was happening to him under these Regulations. I wish to deal with this specific case because it is typical of what is happening to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of industrially disabled people all over Britain.
I do not think that the man who sent me the letter is quite 40 years of age. In 1949, he had a serious accident in the pit and, among other injuries, he had his back broken. He is going to spend most of the rest of his life in bed, or on fine days, when he feels a little bit better, he will be able to go out in his motor propelled invalid chair.
Under a Labour administration that man, and hundreds like him, were given some hope and some comfort. They had the feeling that the Ministers in the Labour Administration really cared for them. They have already lost that feeling, and I will give one instance to demonstrate how they have lost it. I will try to bring home to hon. Members opposite what their administration lacks. It lacks all the finer feelings of humanity which are so important.
I have many mining villages in my constituency. There was one miner who, when he heard that the man of whom I am talking had an invalid chair, went in his chair to have a look at it. He admired it, and said, "If I had that chair, my first stop would be Blackpool." My miner replied, "And if I were fit enough, my first stop would be London to say 'Thank you' to Clem Attlee and Jim Griffiths." The hon. and gallant Member for Ripon (Colonel Stoddart-Scott), who is a doctor, may laugh but that is the feeling of such men who have suffered so badly from accidents in the pits, in the steelworks, and in the heavy industries of this country.
But what has happened to this man? Here is his letter in which he says:
You will understand that I receive prescriptions every week, sometimes on three occasions, for the undermentioned articles: methylated spirit, cotton wool, medicated lint, cod liver oil, Dettol, Elastoplast bandages, dressings, codeine tablets, laxatives and sulphur tablets.

These are all the things which that one man needs to make life at all liveable.
I went to see him at the week-end, and he told me that when he was first given these prescriptions, for which he had to pay 1s., his wife went to see the area officer of the National Assistance Board. This man gets no National Assistance, All the usual inquiries were made—the inquiries which hon. Members opposite used to call "snooping "—and his wife was told that he would have to pay for all the prescriptions because he was above the scale. But all that man is receiving is his industrial injuries benefit, his sickness benefit and the family allowances. He has no other source of income at all.
He has to have his wounds dressed every day, and these Regulations will add to the unavoidable suffering which he and hundreds like him have to bear every day of their lives. They will add shocking, avoidable suffering, because he and the others like him will not be able to pay for these prescriptions. It may be that many of the things that he needs could be put on one prescription and that he could be saved a certain amount of expense if his doctor were allowed to give him more tablets, or whatever it may be, on one prescription than he originally received. But when my hon. and right hon. Friends suggested that, hon. Members opposite were shocked and said that we on this side were asking the doctors and other people not to carry out the legislation passed by the House.
I have here form E.C.N. 97. One hon. Member said that there was at least one sentence in it which was clear and simple. How clear and simple that one sentence is. It reads:
Doctors are asked not to increase the quantities normally supplied on any one occasion.
If my doctor, who is also this man's doctor and a very good fellow, decides to increase what he usually gives, will he be hauled up for it? Will he be told by hon. Members opposite that he is breaking the law? That is one of the questions which I would like whoever is to reply to the debate to answer. But the difficulty does not end with this man personally. He has a wife and three children of school age. How he is to find the money for the prescriptions which he needs and, at the same time, if necessary, for prescriptions for medi-


cine for his wife or any of his children should they be ill, I just do not know.
I know another miner who needs five appliances before he can even go out in his invalid chair. What is to happen to him? I have spoken mostly about miners who have been disabled in the industry, but there are other workers in steel works and in all the heavy industries of this country who have also been disabled.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): The hon. Lady raised the point of a miner with five appliances before. Would she tell us what five appliances would incur a charge?

Miss Herbison: Certainly, I will send the hon. Lady the letter I received from that miner.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Will the hon. Lady tell us what five appliances could possibly involve a charge under these Regulations?

Miss Herbison: I will send the hon. Lady the letter and she can find out from that what these appliances are.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The hon. Lady made this point with great emotion before. She complained about the plight of this miner, with whom I had great sympathy, and said that it was necessary for him to use spinal and other appliances. She must know that there is no charge on such appliances, so I think we are entitled to know what charge she thinks applies to them.

Miss Herbison: I accept the challenge of the hon. Lady. It may be that some of these appliances do not bear a charge, but I am drawing the attention of the House to this miner—and he is only one of many—who needs these five appliances. Added to that, he will have to pay all these other charges. It may be that I do speak with emotion. If the hon. Lady represented the same type of people that I do and saw broken bodies every week in her constituency, perhaps, she might speak with similar emotion, because these people are very near and dear to me.
But it is not only miners who have broken bodies through accidents about whom I want to speak. I also want to mention the miners and the steel workers who are suffering from pneumoconiosis. These men also need prescriptions for cod

liver oil and other things, and because they are industrially disabled they have to pay for the prescriptions they receive.
I want to plead with the Minister that he will at least treat the industrially disabled in the same way as he is treating the war disabled. That is the only plea I make to him on this point, because if he does give them the same treatment then much suffering will be avoided by these people.

Mr. L. M. Lever: Much better treatment than for the war disabled.

Miss Herbison: I have dealt with that point already, and I have said that even they were treated meanly. There is another point which I should like to make, though I may be accused by the Parliamentary Secretary of having made it before. I wish I could find words to bring home to the hon. Lady and hon. Members opposite what it must be like to live on the old-age pension and the supplementary pension. When I read the instructions sent out by the Ministry I begin to despair of ever finding words to bring this home to hon. Members opposite.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Will my hon. Friend allow me to intervene for one moment? I have great respect for her, because of her very fine record. We are all listening to her with great attention and what she is saying is rousing the deepest emotions in me. But I want to make it known that what she has been saying applied always and that it should be a lesson to every one of us.

Miss Herbison: Form E.C.N. 96 issued by the Ministry states:
A person who wishes to make such a claim"—
that is, to have the 1s. refunded—
should be given a receipt on Form E.C. 57, which explains how a refund can very simply be obtained at the same office (usually the post office) and at the same time as the regular weekly payment from the National Assistance Board.
The word that sticks in my throat, and makes me despair of hon. Members opposite ever realising how these people live is that word "simply," because in another part of the form we are told that they will receive their 1s. at the same office and on the same day as they collect their pensions.
I want to say again that when the old-age pensioner has paid her rent and has paid for her light, her coal, the little food that she can afford to buy and anything extra for clothing, and that is very little, a few days after she has received the pension and supplementary pension she does not have 1s. left for a prescription. Will the chemist be allowed to give her medicine and to give her a form to come back with the 1s. when she receives it at the post office, or will that be frowned upon by hon. Members opposite? If it is frowned upon, then, if they have any feeling at all for these old people, they will change these Regulations so as to exempt these old people from paying anything at all.
Finally, it is not only the old-age pensioners who will suffer. The lowest wage earners, and particularly those who have families, will suffer very much indeed. The hon. Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Fort) said that we on this side of the House first introduced these charges. It is true that we had on the Statute Book an Act which would have made it possible to charge 1s. on prescriptions, but it was on the Statute Book long before we came into office. We did not put it into effect because of the existence of the very people of whom I have spoken today, and because of the administrative difficulty of carrying it out fairly and justly.

Mr. Fort: How does the hon. Lady square what she has said, with great sincerity, with the remarks of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), who said he needed to manoeuvre in order to avoid these charges?

Miss Herbison: That is not a question which the hon. Member ought to put to me.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): Neither do I believe that discussion of that is in order in a debate on these Regulations.

7.56 p.m.

Mr. J. K. Vaughan-Morgan: Before the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) rose, it was remarkable how few had been the fireworks in this debate compared with what one might have expected from the impassioned speeches on Second Reading of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman

the Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) and those who succeeded him were very restrained and seemed, on the whole, to have singularly little to criticise; and what criticism they made was very thin.
Then the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North entered the debate and made a speech which was charged with emotion. No one objects to emotion and no one wishes to minimise in any way suffering in any quarter. Everyone wishes to alleviate that suffering wherever it is possible. But when an hon. Member is making an emotional speech he or she ought to be particularly careful to get the facts right. When the hon. Lady was challenged she could not answer, and I think my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health will have no difficulty in dealing with all the points she raised.

Miss Herbison: Most of my speech dealt with the charge for drugs. On that there is no contention whatever. The other point I made was to show the added misery which these same men have to suffer without having further misery imposed upon them.

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: I do not think that that alters in any way what I said. We are all speaking from our experience of these Regulations, which have been in being for a very short time. We shall have to wait very much longer before we know how they are actually working and we can only give our experience of the Regulations as we have found them so far.
In company with my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Linstead) and other hon. Members, I am surprised at how few complaints and criticisms we have received so far. I think that some hon. Members opposite will agree when I say that we have had some rather wild statements about administrative chaos, with very little evidence; though we had an account of one harrowing incident from the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price), who interrupted the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop) at considerable length.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenock waxed very humorous, just as the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North waxed very emotional, on the subject of the bad English and the jargon used in some of the circulars


issued by the Ministry of Health. In some ways I agree with them about the bad English. I wish that my right hon. Friend, like every other Minister, could for a time get Sir Ernest Gowers on to his staff to try to simplify the phraseology which seems necessary to convey even the simplest meaning. But that did not begin with my right hon. Friend. It seems to be a vice that goes through every Government Department.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenock did what is the easiest trick in the world. He took one phrase out of the form and asked what it meant. I pointed out that it should be read in conjunction not only with the sentence following, which was perfectly clear, but with everything else in the form. The right hon. Gentleman failed to draw the obvious conclusion from his remarks, namely, that the very fact that there have been so many, perhaps too many, of these forms was the real reason why there has been no administrative chaos in the launching of this system. I think that we ought to give credit to the Ministry of Health, instead of just laughing at them, for having been able to launch this difficult scheme without causing more upset throughout the country than they have done.
I want to raise one or two small points of administration, to which I should like to draw the attention of my right hon. Friend.

Mr. A. Woodburn: I gather from what the hon. Member has said that he gives complete absolution to the Government, and says that nobody seems to have had any trouble under this scheme. Does he consider that old-age pensioners, whose ages range from, say, 65 to 85, in having to go to chemists, getting a form, and having to draw the 1s. later, do not have all sorts of trouble? They may lose the form, they may not be clear about what they ought to do, and many of them may not be able to recover the 1s. because of their own mistakes. Does the hon. Gentleman think that the scheme could possibly work simply when old people are supposed to read instructions of the type that have just been read out?

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: I was referring to the speech of the right hon. Member for Greenock who spoke of administra-

tive chaos, and I was referring in particular to the circulars of the Ministry. I shall have a few remarks to make on the subject later. This is a very difficult scheme to put into practice. Hon. Members opposite have said that it would break down completely, yet, at the same time, they are complaining that it has not broken down completely.
There are one or two further points to which I wish to refer. The first is the question of the chronic sick. I want to ask my right hon. Friend—I think it was the hon. Member for Kirkdale (Mr. Keenan) who referred to it—whether he will keep a very close watch on what is happening to certain categories of the chronic sick, and whether under the Regulations as they stand he will be in a position completely to exempt certain drugs if necessary. I have in mind medinal for epileptics and insulin for diabetics. It may be that he will find in due course that he can easily exempt those particular drugs which can only be used for a limited purpose, as I understand it. I believe that he can, and I should like him to bear that point in mind.
The other point to which I wish to draw attention relates to what I might call the borderline National Assistance Board cases. I hope that I have the sympathy of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock), because I know that she is concerned with this matter. There are certain classes of people in this country who are not N.A.B. cases; they are not receiving assistance. It may well be that they ought to.
It may be—I think I would be out of order if I enlarged on this too much—that they ought to have been brought into touch with the N.A.B. a long time ago, and this could be one way of doing it. When such a person goes to the chemist he is told on the receipt form what to do if he is receiving assistance, but he is not told anywhere what to do if he wants assistance. I think that ought to be made clear on the receipt form.
I know that my right hon. Friend has taken a great deal of trouble to see that the information where to go for assistance has been widely distributed. I want him to go further. I want him to do two things. I have a Question down to him on this subject. First, I want him to send the necessary posters and information to the town halls and citizens'


advice bureaux throughout the country, and it should be their task to send the posters and information out to all the voluntary bodies, including the old peoples' clubs, and so on, where the information may be necessary.
I want my right hon. Friend to consider one other suggestion. The prepaid form for claiming assistance is at present obtained at the post office. I suggest that it might be possible for those forms to be made available in the chemist shops as well, so that when someone is in a chemist shop and makes a complaint about the charge, and possibly about the iniquity of my right hon. Friend, the chemist will be in a position to show him or her there and then the card which he or she can fill up to get assistance. That might help in a good many cases to provide assistance for such people sooner than might otherwise be the case if they had to go to the post office to get the form. I should like my right hon. Friend to consider those two points that I have mentioned.

Mr. William Ross: The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that there should be extra publicity to enable old people who have not been in touch with the National Assistance Board to get assistance. Is it not obvious that many of these people will discover for the first time that they have a right to draw 1s., and many will discover, for the first time, that they are entitled to National Assistance? Would it not be easier and cheaper to leave these old people on pension out of the scheme altogether?

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: If the hon. Gentleman would listen to my speech he would realise that he has been repeating the point that I have made. The hon. Member for Batley and Morley (Dr. Broughton) is in his place; I am very glad because I was looking forward to making a quotation from one of his speeches. It reminds us of the background against which these Regulations are being discussed. The hon. Member for Batley and Morley made a very able speech on 24th April, 1951. He said:
The National Health Service is to cost more this year than it has cost before.
That is still true.
So we cannot say that re-armament is causing less expenditure than formally. A

figure of approximately £400 million has been decided upon as the limit of expenditure for this year and I think this huge amount should be regarded as reasonable in present circumstances."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th April, 1951; Vol. 487, c. 294.]
There is not a fact in that quotation which has changed in the year. That is why we are discussing these Regulations, and it is no good hon. Members coming forward with their remarks about administrative chaos and iniquities. What we have to bear in mind is that that sum of money is limited. We want it to be spent not on cough mixtures which are not necessary, but on the things which are really necessary for creating health.

8.8 p.m.

Mr. Tom Brown: In the first place, I ought to reply to the statement made by the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Linstead). In view of his reputation in this House for being a fair-minded man, I was amazed when he made a mild accusation against this side of the House and said that we were doing all that we could to make it impossible for these Regulations to be carried out. Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that such is not the case, and I hope that whatever may be our views on legislative matters or Regulations, we shall never advise our people not to work the Regulations or disobey legislation.
I am one of those who believe that all of us, on whatever side of the House we sit, are citizens of this country before we are politicians, and we want to honour the legislation that is passed in this House. But at the same time it is our job to try to improve the Regulations, whether they come from this side or the opposite side of the House. If we see anything that is not helping our people it is our job to speak out and tell the Minister or the Government Department concerned where they are wrong. That is what we are trying to do tonight.
On the Committee stage of the National Health Service Bill the hon. Member for Putney said:
…we are in danger, in the Health Service in particular, of forgetting one very fundamental thing. That is, that no State can take away from an individual the responsibility of his own health."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd April, 1952; Vol. 498, c. 1979.]
But what we can do and what we should do is to make it possible for the individual to enjoy good health by assisting


him in every way possible. That should be our objective.
I want to deal with the Regulations as they affect appliances. I hope that I shall not be accused of speaking emotionally about the miners because I happen to come from the mining fraternity. I speak emotionally, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) because these cases are with us every day of our lives. It is because of what we see in the mining villages that we speak with emotion and profound feelings.
I want clarification from the Minister on three points—abdominal supports, knee caps and surgical boots. On the third page of the Schedule there appear the words "surgical abdominal supports each," and then the information is conveyed that applicants will have to pay £1 whatever the cost of the surgical appliance. I would remind the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary that the men in the pits have to buy three supports. Will they have to pay £1 for each support individually or £1 for the three together?
I will give an illustration. I can understand the right hon. Gentleman and the Parliamentary Secretary not understanding our point of view because they do not know the industry, but I hope they will take some notice of those who speak from experience. A miner who sustains a rupture or a hernia cannot always get into hospital immediately, because of the shortage of beds, unless he has a strangulated hernia, in which case he is admitted at once. If the man continues at work he has to have an abdominal support. He has to buy one belt in which to work, one to wear at home, and one has to be available to meet the need for repairs. Hon. Members with practical knowledge of mining know full well that a miner cannot wear at home the abdominal belt he wears in the pits. I want to know from the Minister whether these men will have to pay £3 or £1 for their appliances.

Dr. Stross: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Regulations state that the payment for a truss is 1s. on a form and that these abdominal belts are actually trusses for hernia of the abdomen or the umbilicus?

Mr. T. Brown: Far be it from me to pit my brains against those of my hon. Friend. I am trying to argue on the basis of what the Regulations say and that is

that £1 will have to be paid for an abdominal support.
Men in the mining industry suffer from what medical people call subcutaneous cellulitis of the patella of the knee. That is beat-knee or, in plain language, housemaid's knee. A man suffering from that complaint has to wear a knee-cap immediately while he waits for an operation for the removal of the fluid and he has also to wear a knee-cap after the operation. Will such a man pay three times or only once? It is an important point these days because we have a tremendous number of these cases owing to the lowness of our mines. Practically all the tall mines, particularly in the North, have been worked and our men now frequently work the seams 2 feet 6 inches or 3 feet high, and they are on their knees seven and a half to eight hours out of the 24 hours.

Mr. Ivor Owen Thomas: Would it not be helpful to the House if the Minister would indicate the actual position, in reply to the two points which my hon. Friend has raised? The schedule specifically says "surgical abdominal supports each £1."

Mr. Brown: That is what I have said.

Mr. Thomas: The schedule says "each" in regard to elastic hosiery and other things.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) is in possession of the House.

Mr. Brown: I can understand my hon. Friend's enthusiasm but I am prepared to wait until the right hon. Gentleman or the Parliamentary Secretary replies. I am trying to put my points very humbly as an ex-miner and in a way which will help the mining fraternity and the Minister.
I also want some clarification of the position concerning surgical boots. The Parliamentary Secretary tried to trip up my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North on the question of the five appliances. It may surprise the Parliamentary Secretary to know that we have men in the mining industry who have to have three trusses, and also knee-caps and surgical boots, and that makes five appliances that they have to buy. Some men are in an even worse position than that.

Mr. Manuel: Does the Parliamentary Secretary give in?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) mentioned five spinal supports in her speech but did not name them and I challenged her. No. Sir, I do not give in.

Mr. Brown: I do not want to get at cross purposes with the hon. Lady.

Mr. Manuel: Why not? That is what we are here for.

Mr. Brown: What I am seeking to do in my very humble way is to educate them in the direction in which they ought to go. They do not understand. I am not blaming them because they do not understand; what I am trying to point out is that we who have had experience in the minefields know what we are talking about, and I hope the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary will take some notice of the suggestions which we are making and the questions which we are putting to them.
Take the question of surgical boots. The same thing applies here. A man has to have a pair of boots for work at the pit and a pair to wear at home. No man, by any stretch of imagination, would wear the same boots at home as he wears in the pits. Will they have to pay the extra for the additional pair of boots? There are three direct questions which I am pleading that the Minister or his Department should answer. First, there is abdominal supports; secondly, kneecaps; and thirdly, surgical boots.
I have gone on rather longer than I intended, but I want to put a final plea to the Minister. If he cannot help us in the many directions which we desire, can he help us to erase the 1s. charge for prescriptions for old age pensioners? If he could do that—and I know he will find it difficult; I know there has been behind-the-scenes working—

Mr. Ellis Smith: What does that mean?

Mr. Brown: I will tell my hon. Friend what it means. Behind all this—and I say it with all the emphasis that I can command—there is the parsimonious, niggardly policy of the Treasury; they are the people behind this, and we have to suffer and our people have to suffer

because of it. If he does nothing else, will the Minister endeavour to erase the Regulation which makes it compulsory for our old folk to pay the 1s. prescription charge? I could draw some very weird pictures of what I see in my village because of this charge. If any man can show me, whether he be right hon. or hon. Gentleman, or whether he be an expert or not, that the old age pensioner who is in receipt of the miserable pittance of basic pension, can pay 1s. for a prescription, I will hand out a laurel leaf to him.
Be it understood that the economic conditions of our old folk, who have to have perhaps two or three or four prescriptions a week, because of the complaints from which they are suffering, are such that they cannot afford to pay the 1s. prescription charge for the medicine which they must take to help them along the pathway of life. I plead with the Minister, if he cannot concede what we ask in so many other directions, will he please, above all, concede the elimination of the charge for the 1s. prescription to old age pensioners?

8.25 p.m.

Mr. Spencer Summers: I do not know whether it was a slip of the tongue, but when the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) drew attention to the position of the old age pensioners, and in the plea which he made on their behalf, he gave the case of the old age pensioner who was drawing National Assistance, suggesting that in those circumstances it would be impossible for such a person to afford to pay the 1s. required under these Regulations. Of course, the hon. Gentleman must know that such a person would not have to pay. [HON. MEMBERS: "Of course he will."] It is completely misleading to illustrate a plea for old age pensioners by a case in which the pensioner is so lacking in resources that he has a right to draw National Assistance.

Mr. Percy Shumer: Certainly he would have to pay.

Mr. Summers: If the instance is a recurring one, I agree that there may be one case in the series; there has to be one to start the chain.

Mr. Shurmer: Mr. Shurmer rose—

Mr. Summers: I would prefer to deal with the hon. Member for Ince.

Mr. M. Turner-Samuels: Mr. M. Turner-Samuels (Gloucester) rose—

Mr. Summers: I cannot give way to the hon. and learned Gentleman, although I will give way to the hon. Member for Ince.

Mr. T. Brown: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I know his interest in the welfare of old folk and I have heard him speak on the subject from time to time. I am fully aware that the old age pensioner in receipt of supplementary assistance is exempt from paying the 1s. prescription charge. My reference was to the large number of old age pensioners who are not in receipt of supplementary assistance and who will have to pay this shilling when they go to the doctor or chemist.

Mr. Summers: I will deal with that section. I will deal with the largest section of the old age pensioners in the later references I want to make.
I want to register my protest at some of the completely extravagant language of the right hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil), who moved the Motion. It is a shocking thing so to distort the position we have reached as to say that where a charge is to be made of one-quarter of the value of the goods, that is tantamount to filching money out of the pockets of the poor and sick. It is not rendering a service to the House or to the understanding of this system to distort matters to that extent.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to speak of this "nonsense" when he referred to the collection of charges in out-patient departments. The hon. Gentleman who seconded the Motion strayed from the facts so far as to describe the effect of the Regulations as setting up a source of fresh tax gatherers. I want later to make the broad point about the principle of charging. But it is quite misleading to suggest that to charge a quarter of the value—which is the effect of these Regulations—is setting up a tax gathering service.
In my view, it is regrettable that hon. Members should bring forward a series of very hard cases, admittedly hard, and should claim that, because of the effect

of these Regulations on a very small proportion of the population, therefore the Regulations ought not to be approved by the House. It may well be that there are individuals who are denied the right of recovery under the administration as it is now arranged, and I for my part would be only too ready to study individual ways of bringing within the scope of relief those genuine cases, small in number, which bring with them substantial hardship. To be willing to see that individual cases of hardship are helped by administrative methods, while permitting a broad system of charging to go on, is quite a different matter from saying that the whole scheme should be abandoned because of its effect upon a small number of people.
There is great merit in these Regulations. It is right and proper that the system which prevails in this country should work so that the individual should look to his own resources for the running repairs that he needs. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] If there is any doubt about what I mean by "running repairs," let me explain that I mean the smaller charges which arise from time to time. I want to make quite sure that funds are available to deal with those who are sick, whether chronically or through accident, first in hospitals, and secondly for severe cases where, if the victims had to rely upon their own resources, they would be denied the benefits of science.
Because of the increased ability to have the severe charges upon an individual covered by the general scheme, I welcome the principle of the smaller charges being left to the individual to find out of his own resources. With that thought in mind, as a background, of enabling more money to be available to hospitals by keeping a ceiling on this section of the Health Service, I welcome this system which has been introduced, and I hope that—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): The principle of the general charge is not in order in this discussion. Whether it is justified or not, it has already been authorised. We are now considering special charge.

Mr. Summers: I am coming to the end of my remarks, Sir. I hope, for the reasons that I have given, that this prayer will not be upheld.

8.32 p.m.

Mrs. E. M. Braddock: The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers) commenced his speech by saying that he was surprised at the extravagant language used by the mover of the Prayer. I might inform him and the Minister of Health that if I used some of the language that my constituents have used to me about their feelings, it would be completely unparliamentary and that I should probably find myself outside, as I did on a previous occasion. The comments that have been made by people who have found themselves compelled to pay a shilling when they went to an out-patient department or the chemist's shop were in the sort of language that working-class folk use about people they do not like.
I want, first of all, to dispel the idea which seems to be prevalent that a state of chaos exists in relation to these regulations. I have always found that, however difficult, however mixed up and hard to work a Regulation may be that comes from a Government Department, the poor officials who are paid to do the job make it their business to see that it is as easy as possible and to make it work as easily as possible. Mixed up, bad and difficult though these Regulations are, I have found that the officials who have to work them are doing so to the best of their ability.
On a public platform not long ago I made a statement, and I want to make it again here. It was to the effect that I hoped that everybody in the country living on low wages or unemployment pay who felt entitled to the return of the 1s. they had had to pay would make it their business to go to the Assistance Board, or to send for a visitor from the Assistance Board, to get their claim examined for a return of the 1s. I believe that by that process this scheme would be completely broken up, because the administration would not be able to stand the claims and the additional stamps and forms that would be necessary.
I wanted to say that here because I had an idea that the Minister was going to make reference to the speech I made and to suggest that I was not prepared to advocate the carrying out of the legislation. I am advocating the complete carrying out of the legislation. If people who are so entitled take advantage of

the legislation, the scheme will completely fall to pieces, because the administration will be incapable of doing the work. Many people will be entitled to the 1s. refund and they should apply for it, and find out whether the Assistance Board will make the necessary inquiries to discover whether they are so entitled.
The second thing I want to refer to is this. Reference has also been made to the fact that certain medical or administrative staffs in the hospitals will not charge the 1s. I do not think they will do so because they are in a difficult position. If the doctor in an out-patient department of a hospital issues a prescription which he considers to be necessary, and the patient has not 1s. with which to pay for the prescription, it would be outside the ethics of the medical profession if the hospital service refused to give that necessary medicine to the person in question. I know that the hospital service will not under any circumstances refuse to hand out the medicine that is prescribed by a specialist or a medical man in a hospital to a person who has not got the 1s. to pay for it. What arrangements are made about that?
Whether hon. Gentlemen opposite know it or not, there are thousands of people who cannot take 1s. out of their pockets without wondering what they will have to do without if they give that 1s. for a prescription. What will happen about the person who goes into the chemist's shop? Already two sets of requests have been issued. The first one asked the chemists to get the 1s. when they make up the prescription. However, so many prescriptions have not been claimed because the person concerned has not got 1s., and the medicine has gone down the drain since it could not be given to anyone else, that an instruction has now been issued that the chemists must not make up the medicine until the 1s. has been produced.
What a position to put a patient in? I say definitely and bluntly, so that it is on record, that if anything happens to one of my constituents because he or she has not got 1s. to pay for a bottle of medicine prescribed by the doctor, I shall make it my business to take legal action against whatever Department is responsible and bring it as far into the high courts as possible, because, if the person dies, it will be murder or manslaughter on the part of some-


body. I am warning the Minister that that is the stand I shall take if any of my constituents suffer because they have not got the 1s.

Dr. Stross: Is it quite correct to say that a new Regulation has gone out stating that the medicine must not be handed over without the 1s. being produced? Is it not rather that they cannot be legally compelled to give it without the 1s. and that, as a result, chemists have a variation in conduct? Those with the best social consciences risk the loss of the money, and those who have not got such a social conscience can please themselves.

Mrs. Braddock: It is a question of interpretation. That is the difficulty with all these Regulations. Everyone interprets them in any way they wish.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: Will the hon. Lady allow me—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. A large number of hon. Members wish to take part in this debate, and it is much better if hon. Members will reserve their remarks until they have an opportunity of making their own speeches.

Mrs. Braddock: I am not concerned with what the chemist does, provided he gives the medicine to the person who has not got 1s. Someone may go to a doctor, take up a quarter of an hour of his time, the doctor issues a prescription for the medicine he considers necessary, and then the patient may not have 1s. when he goes to the chemist. That is a waste of the time of the medical service. Working people do not go to a doctor and ask for a prescription for fun. They go because they need it, and they see the doctor because they need to do so. I can imagine what the doctors would say if a stream of people went to their surgeries simply to get notes for prescriptions that they did not need.
These Regulations, the charges, and the way in which the matter has been dealt with, are causing, and will cause, in spite of the fact that there is very little evidence of it at the moment, great upset and difficulty later in the year, from October to March, when practically every aged person suffers from bronchitis and has to have medicine perhaps once or twice a week. They just will not have the money, and all the work that

has been done in getting people to live longer will be undone by the fact that they cannot get the services that the previous Government gave them in relation to medicine.
Let me say a word about the various methods of collecting the shillings. I have discovered some queer methods. In one of the hospitals in my constituency, a machine has been installed for the purpose of issuing receipts. That machine takes only shillings—no other coins can be used. I found an old lady running around outside the hospital looking for a shilling. I asked what was the matter. She said, "I have to get some medicine. I had two sixpences and put them in the machine, but nothing happened." I investigated and found that what had happened was that the next person to go to the machine had had a shilling and had inserted it, with the result that she had got her receipt and the sixpences had come back to her. Unless someone is standing by these machines to explain how they are to be used, all sorts of difficulties can be created.
In addition, there is a shortage of shillings generally. Almost every slot machine in my area, for gas, electricity, and so on, is a shilling meter. There are not enough shillings in circulation for people to carry them permanently in their pockets in order to be able to present one at every chemist's shop or wherever it is necessary to obtain a prescription.
I notice that in the Regulations a slight alteration has been made. According to Statutory Instrument No. 1023, relating to outpatient departments of hospitals, anybody who is in receipt of National Assistance has only to show his or her book at the dispensing department of the hospital and does not have to pay the 1s. But people who go to a chemist's shop to get their prescriptions must show their book or give their names and state whether they are in receipt of National Assistance.
There has begun a whispering campaign in chemists' shops. People wait until somebody else whom they do not wish to know that they are receiving National Assistance has left the shop. People go up to the chemist and whisper, "I am in receipt of National Assistance. May I have a receipt to get my shilling back?" All the personal, open contact with the people who are connected with the Service has gone completely. People


do not want everybody to know that they are in receipt of supplementation.
Even when people get the necessary form, it is divided into two. On one side, the chemist has to put the name of the person and his own staff. Then he hands the form to the person, who has to go home, fill in his or her name or state whoever is to draw the 1s., and state his C.P. number—I do not know whether that stands for "Communist Party" or "Conservative Party."
Like other hon. Members who represent industrial areas, I have many old people who do not understand form-filling and who get into all sorts of difficulties, who put the queerest things on ballot papers, never mind forms to fill in to get their shillings back. Think of the difficulty, the worry, the upset and the unnecessary administration that is being caused, not only to old people and to those who need to make a claim, but to the Departments concerned. Could it not be arranged that where a person is in receipt of National Assistance, the same procedure applies in the chemist's shop as is now being arranged for out-patient departments; whereby people who show their National Assistance books can get their medicine free?
Then there will be all the extra administration for the chemists, who have to say how many prescriptions they have given free and how many have been paid for. Looking through the various forms, I do not know what the chemists and doctors are going to become. There are so many forms that I could lay them on the Floor of the House and they would extend from one end to the other. One person must fill in one form, while another person has to fill another form. I believe the whole thing is unnecessary. I believe it is a piece of administration which we could easily do without. People have plenty of other things to do, particularly paid officials, without filling in forms, giving advice and helping people who ought to be assisted by the State and not put to the difficulty of filling forms and meeting all these charges.
I hope sincerely that the advice I am giving at every meeting I address that everyone who is able to do so and believes he is entitled to claim the shilling should make it his business to see that the officials are there in order to see that

they get it. I believe that by that method the scheme can be put out of operation completely and we can go back to the method we employed previously.

8.46 p.m.

Mr. Baker White: A large number of hon. Members opposite wish to speak and I shall be very brief. For fairly obvious reasons, I shall not follow the hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) in her arguments—[An HON. MEMBER: "You could not."] Perhaps not.
I wish to correct a point which I thought was put wholly unpleasantly by the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) and wholly pleasantly put by the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), that no hon. Members on this side of the House had any experience of human relations in industry, particularly in the mining industry. I have lived for many years in close proximity with the mining industry and the second boring for coal in Kent was on my father's land. I have several thousand constituents who are miners and my relations with them are wholly cordial. So I think I know a little about their problems and difficulties.
The point I wish to raise with my right hon. Friend concerns those persons who have to go to the National Assistance Board office to get the 1s. back. I want to know, because they are not clear about it, whether, if they have to travel an appreciable distance to do that, they get their bus fares paid or not? I was proved wrong over this the other day. I read a letter in the "Manchester Guardian" in which the writer made the point that in East London it might require a 4d. bus fare or more, to get 1s. back.
I looked up the National Insurance offices in the telephone directory and thought this was wrong, but the writer was perfectly right. No one has raised this question with me as a complaint, but merely as a question. I made inquiries in my constituency and found that it may cost up to 1s. or 1s. 6d. in bus fares to go to the National Assistance Board. I should like to see that point cleared up and I should like to see it arranged that if people have to spend bus fares they shall be reimbursed.
So far as old-age pensioners are concerned, from the little experience we have had I say, quite frankly, that I would like them to be excluded from the charge. I


believe that I have been consistent about this. When the decision was first announced I put down a Question asking whether they could be exempt. Again, I have had no complaints at all from old-age pensioners, but I think it would be worth while the little additional expense to relieve them from the anxiety and worry, even if they are to get their 1s. back from one channel or another.
I want to put only one general point. I think it is accepted that the post-bag of a Member of Parliament is a mirror of public opinion, and certainly a mirror of public indignation. If there were the alleged public indignation, maladministration and chaos that some hon. Members opposite have depicted in the working of this scheme, surely we should have had very many letters about it. I have here more than 200 letters which I have had from constituents about the question of passenger fares. I have a large batch of letters about the Pensions (Increase) Bill, but from 62,000 constituents I have had but one complaint about the working of these Regulations.

Mr. John Baird: This is a rather important point, which has been made by a number of Members opposite. It is quite true that not many complaints have come to Members of Parliament but if the hon. Member would ask any professional man, dentists or pharmacists, in his division, he will find that the public are now complaining and that bad feeling is being created which has not yet percolated to Members of Parliament.

Mr. Baker White: I can only say that the rate of percolation must be unusually slow compared with other matters which cause letters to be written, because there was no such delay about the rate of percolation of representations about the new Pensions (Increase) Bill. The rate of percolation there has been exactly 24 hours.
I wanted to know whether my constituency was unique in this respect, so I asked 20 of my hon. Friends last night, and I chose constituencies with some care—industrial ones, including one in which there is acute unemployment, dormitory ones, and rural ones like my own. Those 20 constituencies have a total electorate of 1,138,000. The total number of verbal or written complaints which those Members have received so far about

the working of these Regulations is 10—from 1,138,000 people.

8.52 p.m.

Mr. Somerville Hastings: In the short time I wish to detain the House I want to deal solely with the impact of these charges on the hospital services. I took the trouble to make inquiries at several hospitals with which I am associated and what I want to say tonight is concerned with what I have found as a result of those inquiries.
There has certainly been some reduction in out-patient attendances, but I should not like to say very much about that because people's general health may have been better and certainly more people are on holiday in June than in May. To my surprise, to some extent, I learned that the people who raised most objections to these charges in the hospitals were the doctors and nurses. A little thought on my part made it clear why this was the case. Doctors belong to the most socialistic of all professions. It is our tradition to treat our colleagues and nurses without any payment. Those of us who are working in hospitals also treat in the same way all other hospital workers.
When a doctor has seen a colleague or nurse or perhaps another hospital worker, and, that person takes the prescription to the dispensary and is asked to pay 1s., there is a very strong feeling of resentment. All those who have worked in hospitals must realise what is the traditional attitude of the hospitals—that we work together as a team and that we thoroughly agree with that Scriptural injunction which says that it is, wrong "to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn."
We who work in hospitals were delighted when in 1948 the almoners of the hospitals, instead of being mainly collectors of money, became what they really ought always to have been, almoners in the true sense; people who made known the possibilities of the social services available to the patients. And we have tried, as has been suggested, to withdraw from the almoners the need for collecting funds, by the use of stamp machines, with more or less success. But in any case, the organisation of this collection has to be carried out by the almoners. When the patient has not 1s. the almoner lends 1s. to the patient and hopes that it may


be returned. Sometimes the almoner gets it, and sometimes he or she does not. I know perfectly well that in these Regulations there is a paragraph which says:
Any sum payable under these regulations to a hospital authority or any other person shall be recoverable summarily as a civil debt.
But I would ask the Minister whether he thinks that will be carried out, and whether the habit of people borrowing a 1s. and failing to return it may not grow?
There is another point in these Regulations to which I would like to refer. It is in Statutory Instrument No. 1023, which deals with charges for hospital services, and I read in Schedule 7 (1, b), that
a person who receives the drug or appliance for the treatment of a disability which has been accepted for an award by the Minister of Pensions, being a disability for the treatment of which that Minister may defray any necessary medical or surgical expenses
shall not be charged any fee. That is in the Regulation.
But there are one or two points I should like to raise about this. First of all, we do not treat a disability, we treat a patient. We do not treat a wooden leg, but the individual who carries it. I would point out how difficult it is to say whether symptoms for which treatment is required, are the result of a disability which has been accepted for an award by the Minister of Pensions or not. A man may perhaps have lost his leg, and he cannot sleep at night. Is that due to the loss of his leg, or to something else? Or a man may be receiving a pension for a head injury, and he gets a headache. How can a doctor possibly say whether the headache is due to the injury, or to one of the many hundreds of other causes of a headache?
But my chief objection to these Regulations is that they affect most severely the poorest and most defenceless of our people. I know that provision is made for those in receipt of National Assistance. But I want to refer to the class who are not in receipt of National Assistance; decent, honest people who have been successful in paying their way all their life, and yet when sickness comes upon them, must ask for help.
Take a man who needs a surgical boot. What is he to do? I will read from Circular R.H.B.52/57, which has been issued

by the Ministry. This deals with people not in receipt of National Assistance. It will take me some time to read it. Perhaps the Minister will explain it when I have read it. It reads:
If, however, when the patient is asked to sign the undertaking to pay the charge …
This is for, say, a surgical boot—
… the claim is made that he requires assistance before he can meet it, the person concerned should be advised to apply to the Board's office nearest to his home.
That is the National Assistance Board's office nearest to his home—
The hospital should complete Form A.P.4 and arrange for the hospital's stamp and the date to be entered on the form. (The person should not be asked to sign the form at this stage.) The form should be given to the person to send with his application to the National Assistance Board and he should be asked to return it as soon as a decision has been given. If the Board decide they can help him, they will provide him with a note (Form F.3) indicating the amount of the assistance they are prepared to give, assuming there is no change in the person's circumstances by the time payment is due. This amount may or may not be the full amount of the charge.
The person should give Form F.3 to the hospital when he returns Form A.P.4, which he should then be invited to sign. The hospital can then proceed, if necessary, to order the appliance. If the appliance is to hand, or, if ordered, when it is ready to be fitted, the person should be notified in writing and at the same time told that he should send the notification to the same National Assistance Board office who will, if still satisfied that the person could not meet the charge without hardship, make out a crossed cheque in favour of the hospital authority and hand or send it to the person. The person will present this cheque to the hospital authority when collecting the appliance.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am distressed that the hon. Gentleman finds that incomprehensible, because, with the exception of about three words, it is identical with the provisions made by the Socialist Government for charges for dentures.

Mr. Hastings: I have been through this rather carefully more than once. I think that I have at last managed to comprehend it. As I understand, it will take about a month to carry out all the different operations. Meanwhile, my poor friend who needs a surgical boot, or needs his surgical boot repairing, will be in real difficulty.
What about people with less education than the Minister? Will they not find


this provision most difficult to understand? Some of us hoped that in 1948 we had made the deterrent Poor Law a thing of the past, and that we should hear no more about it; but are not Regulations such as this just as much a deterrent? Will they not keep poor people who need these services from applying for them? What uneducated person is likely to understand such Regulations as these? Cannot the Government try to put out something more simple if they must make these charges?
When the Minister comes to this House and tells us how much these charges have saved the nation, will he also explain that the reason for this saving is not that there is less need but that people have been "choked off" when they need these services. Indeed, those who have been "choked off" may be in the greatest need.

9.5 p.m.

Mr. C. J. M. Alport: I have no doubt that my memory is at fault, but I do not recollect either having read of or heard the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Hastings), who has just spoken, making the same remarks on the occasion when the debate took place on the Regulations introduced by the Government of which he was a supporter and relating to dental charges, in which precisely the same terminology was used.
However, it is not with the hon. Member's speech that I wish to deal, but with a point made by the hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock). The hon. Lady has offered, as far as I can make out, to her constituents—or, indeed I imagine, to anybody—that, in certain events, she will take action on their behalf in the High Court. We realise that the hon. Lady has experience of the High Court, and, therefore, presumably, she is as good as her word, although I still recollect that, on a previous occasion, when she made a somewhat similar threat in the days of the last Parliament about the way in which she would oppose by every means in her power the provisions of the National Health Service Bill, within a few hours she was in the Division Lobby in its support. That, perhaps, may be a warning to those who take her too seriously.
The point to which I wish to draw the attention of the House is that it is quite clear that these Regulations, and the explanation of them which has been issued by the Ministry, have been drawn up as simply as possible and with as great an understanding of the difficulties with which people may find themselves faced in meeting them.
I should like to draw the attention of the hon. Lady to a particular paragraph in a circular, to which I think she referred, which is known as E.C.L. 41/52, dated 23rd May. In this circular, it is perfectly true that it is laid down that chemist contractors shall be under no obligation to supply drugs and appliances except upon payment of the appropriate charge, but the hon. Lady will also note that in paragraph 10 of that circular it is stated that, when the return of the 1s. which has been taken in respect of the prescription is made, only 11¾d. will, in fact, be required from the chemist.
The other ¼d. per form will be allowed to be retained by the chemist to cover cases in which the contractor may be unable to collect the 1s. charge, because the patient does not return for the item ordered, or because the item seems to be urgently needed, but the person collecting it appears to be genuinely without money.
It seems to me quite clear that, not only does that apply in the case of a chemist, but that it must also apply to the dispensing departments in the hospitals. The Minister, and indeed, everyone who regards these Regulations from a practical point of view, will realise that there will be occasions in which the person tendering the prescription is unable to provide the 1s.
In the case of the chemist—who, after all, is almost a family institution, just as much as the doctor or the grocer or any of those others who serve the family, and who knows very well, perhaps better than most, the circumstances of each family, and whether the claim to be unable to pay the 1s. is likely to be genuine or not—he is given a very proper discretion in the matter. Therefore, I am quite clear that those fears which the hon. Lady tried to raise on this matter are quite unfounded.
In very large schemes of this description there are bound to be considerable


difficulties, but as far as possible the approach made by the Minister in framing these Regulations and in inviting interpretation of them is as humane, and, as applied to the practical every day problems of those concerned with carrying them out, as simple as possible.
Therefore, I believe that this last effort by the party opposite to gain political advantage from a misrepresentation of the purpose of this policy will fail. Indeed, it has quite clearly failed from the fact that hon. Members opposite as well as hon. Members on this side of the House know quite well that the initial stages of this scheme are working with a smoothness which was, perhaps, a matter of some surprise to hon. Members on both sides of the House.

9.11 p.m.

Mr. John Baird: First of all, I want to refer to the rather impertinent interjection by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) in the first few minutes of the speech of one of my hon. Friends, when he drew the attention of the House to the fact that I was not present. I was here within five minutes, and I would say to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West that if he is as vocal in his division concerning his attitude towards these charges as he is in this House, I am quite certain he will lose the next Election.
Many hon. Members opposite have made the point that these charges have not caused the amount of ill feeling among the ordinary people of the country that we expected, and that therefore we can assume that they are being received quite well. As I said earlier in an interjection, it is quite true that we Members have not heard a terrible lot about the suffering of these people, but the reason for that is that it is the professional man who is receiving the complaints just now.
We in the professions know that there is a large amount of ill-feeling being caused between the patient and the practitioner because of the imposition of these charges. Another reason we have not heard a lot of complaints about them is that the civil servants are very vocal people and know how to compose a letter whereas a large number of people suffering from these charges do not know how to express themselves in a letter.

Mr. Powell: Mr. Powell rose—

Mr. Baird: No, I do not propose to give way to the hon. Gentleman. In the last speech that he made in the House on this subject, he refused to give way to me, and I have no intention of giving way to him tonight.
I want to deal with the question of the dental charges as imposed under the dental Regulations. The debate so far tonight has been confined to prescription charges. It is quite true that, according to the Minister's estimates, the prescription charges are going to bring in £13 million while the dental charges may bring in only £7 million. But I make the forecast tonight that at the end of the financial year the right hon. Gentleman will find that the money received from the prescription charges will be less than the estimate, whereas the money received from the dental charges will be much higher than the estimate. The reason for that is that the dental charges are causing great hardship and because of them people are not receiving treatment.
I am glad this debate has taken place and I particularly welcome it because it gives us an opportunity to take stock of the position. While it is true, as some hon. Members have said, that we have as yet not much proof of what is happening, we have a certain amount of proof. I think I can say without exaggeration that, as far as dental charges are concerned—and here I declare my interest as a practising dental surgeon—they are already causing great hardship in the country. The dental health of the general public is suffering already as a result of these charges.

Mr. Powell: On a point of order. Could you give the House guidance on this point, Mr. Speaker? The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Baird) is now referring to Regulation No. 1020 (Charges for Dental Treatment). Those Regulations deal only with certain administrative matters and neither with the fact of the imposition of charges nor with the amount of the charges. I ask whether it is in order in this debate to refer to the effects of the imposition of the charges or indeed to any matter not included in the Regulations?

Mr. Speaker: I have given a Ruling to the effect that the House must not in discussion of these Regulations seek to impugn the decision arrived at by the House when it passed the Bill and that speeches should be confined to matters of administration covered by the Regulations. That is the strict rule of order with regard to this debate.

Mr. Baird: I have been directly referring to the effect of this Statutory Instrument. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West is completely muzzled in his own division and is trying to muzzle me as well. I want to submit to the Minister facts which I believe will prove that these charges are already imposing great hardship. The Secretary of the British Dental Association sent me today some figures which he tells me come from one of the most responsible dental practitioners for whom he is willing to vouch.

Mr. Fort: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will it be possible to reply to the rather wide way in which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East is speaking?

Mr. Speaker: One breach of order does not excuse another, but I will ask the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East to have regard to what I said and to confine himself to what is in this Statutory Instrument. The general question of charges for dental treatment was settled in the Act.

Mr. Manuel: Further to that point of order. The hon. Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Fort) went very much wider when he was speaking than has my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East without in any way being pulled up. With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I do not think my hon. Friend was out of order in replying to assertions made from the benches opposite. I hope he will be allowed to reply.

Mr. Powell: Further to that point of order. My hon. Friend the Member for Clitheroe was referring to the charges for prescriptions which are in fact actually imposed by the Statutory Instrument. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East is referring to dental charges not imposed by the Regulations.

Mr. Speaker: The relative Regulation in the Statutory Instrument is Regulation 3, which says:
Any charge authorised by section 2 of the Act to be made in respect of services provided as part of the general dental services under Part IV of the National Health Service Act, 1946, may be made and recovered by the dental practitioner providing those services as a simple contract debt.
The hon. Member is entitled to refer in passing to the general effect, but he must confine himself on this dental business to what is in the Statutory Instrument.

Mr. Powell: With the greatest respect, Mr. Speaker, the Regulation in the Statutory Instrument which you have cited states that the charge may be made and recovered as a simple contract debt. I therefore submit that what the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East is entitled to discuss in relation to the Regulations is whether or not these charges should be so recovered, namely, as a contract debt, or not.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the hon. Member will let me look after these points, but I ask the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East to confine himself to what is in the Regulations and not to stray too wide. This is not an occasion, I would point out again, on which we can re-fight the battle on the National Health Service Act; but the hon. Member should keep himself in order by attending to what I said.

Mr. Baird: I was trying to keep to the narrow point of the debate. I am trying to prove that these Regulations are creating so much trouble that there is a great deterioration in the dental health of the people of this country already. The facts that I was going to give are facts which have been presented to me by the British Dental Association. They relate to a responsible leading dentist in an industrial area who, working with a partner, interviewed and examined this year up to 1st June an average of 250 to 300 new patients per month. Last month he interviewed 35 new patients as a result of this Regulation.
It is quite true that it could be argued that the charges imposed by the Labour Government stopped abuses, but no one can argue that the charges imposed by the present Minister will stop abuses. Therefore, I say that it is causing considerable hardship to a large element of


the population. I know that hon. Members opposite do not like hard facts, and these are hard facts.

Mr. Alport: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You gave a very clear Ruling, which I think all hon. Members in this House understood, that the line of argument which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East was following was not in order. May we have a Ruling whether the arguments which are now being put forward by the hon. Member are in order?

Mr. Speaker: I was listening to the hon. Member and I was of the opinion that he was about to pass on from that to the Regulations themselves. I hope he will pass.

Mr. Baird: Mr. Speaker, I have sat through almost the whole of the debate, and I have listened to hon. Members opposite and on this side of the House. The debate has gone fairly wide the whole evening, and I feel that I have the right to put my case in my own way as long as I do not go out of order.

Mr. Speaker: It is true the debate has gone fairly wide, but the hon. Member will see if he refers to the Statutory Instrument, that there is a difference between the dental charges and the other ones. The charges for prescriptions and so on are set out in the Instruments themselves which we are discussing. All the Instrument says about dental treatment is to refer us to the Act. The Act is passed and cannot now be discussed.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, do not these Regulations deal with charges and with services, and with the administration in each respect? All that my hon. Friend is doing is to refer to those matters. He is referring to the effect that the administrative result from these Regulations is having. Surely, with great respect, that must be in order, quite apart from the fact that the debate has been proceeding on those lines all the time.

Mr. Speaker: The debate has been a general debate, and perhaps that is where the confusion has arisen. Many of these Statutory Instruments do include the charges which are now to be imposed, but in the case of the dental Regulations, which are in No. 1020, the charges to

be imposed are laid down in the Act and not in the Regulations. The Regulations prescribe the machinery by which the charges shall be collected. The hon. Member is entitled to refer to that machinery, but he is not entitled to go back and impugn the decision of the House in passing Section 2 of the Act.

Mr. Baird: Perhaps I may refer to the very complicated forms which have been issued as a result of these Regulations. I know quite well that hon. Members opposite are trying to muzzle me altogether. Might I, in a very narrow way, refer to the question of the forms which are necessary as a result of these Regulations?

Mr. Speaker: It is in order to refer to the forms.

Mr. Baird: I remember when Prayers were moved in this House during the last seven years, before many of the vocal hon. Members opposite were ever in the House—and I may be here long after they are out. When the Labour Government were in power, hon. Members opposite were saying that the Labour Party meant bureaucracy and that we were imposing all kinds of forms and Regulations on the poor doctors and dentists. On many occasions in this House I have attacked the dentists, but tonight, if Mr. Speaker had allowed me, I should have liked to say something in their favour.
As a result of the charges and the forms, dentists in industrial areas are suffering very severe hardship. I am sure the Minister understands that, and I hope he will investigate their financial position. The income of many dentists in industrial areas is lower now than it was before the war as a result of the charges. As a result of our Act and the intervention of myself and some of my hon. Friends, we were able, when the National Health Service Act was introduced—

Mr. F. A. Burden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are we now dealing with these Regulations or with Acts?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) is quicker than I am. I had not come to the end of the sentence being uttered by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East and had been unable to gather what it was he was speaking about.

Mr. Baird: The form introduced by the Labour Government was a very simple one and contained 12 entries altogether. We have now had introduced a complicated form which means that, for a simple operation, the dentist has to make about 46 entries. There is no justification for this complicated, unworkable machinery, and I hope the Minister will simplify it.
I hope I am in order in saying that, as a result of the Regulations, the amount of new estimates being submitted to the Dental Estimates Board has been considerably reduced. The new patients of one dentist have fallen from an average of 250 per month to 45, and that is happening all over the country as a result not only of the charges but also of the complicated machinery. The work of the Dental Estimates Board must have been considerably diminished, and I wonder if anything has been done to cut down the staff of that bureaucratic institution. As a working dentist, I have found that they have not as much form filling to do and the result is that dentists are getting many more needless and pin-pricking letters from them on all sorts of trivial and silly matters. The Minister could save money by cutting out waste in connection with the Dental Estimates Board.
I shall be out of order if I say much more. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I hope hon. Members will listen for a minute. I have been trying to make a serious and fairly constructive speech. Perhaps hon. Members opposite do not know very much about it, but I am sure the Minister does. I am very glad to see the Minister in that office. I entirely disagree with many of his views, but I think that, unlike his predecessor, he knows something about the job. While I shall do my best to get him out as soon as possible, at least I know he is a competent Minister in health questions.
There are many patients today who cannot afford to receive dental treatment because of these charges. Every dentist in the country must know of patients telephoning and cancelling appointments because they now have to pay. It is happening all over the country. The consequences of the charges are more serious than we ever thought would be the case. The Minister, therefore, will save much more money than he thought he would.
Finally, I want to say a word on behalf of the dental profession itself. There is considerable hardship in industrial areas among dentists, who are working part-time. It may be that what the Minister said earlier, about these charges forcing dentists into the school dental service, will come true, because many dentists will be bankrupt as a result of the charges. But I assure the right hon. Gentleman that it still will not solve the school dental problem. The dental profession in these areas is very hard hit indeed, and I should like the Minister to look into the matter. If he does not, the dental health of the great mass of the people of this country, and especially that of the poorer people in industrial areas, will suffer considerably.

Mr. Ross: Before my hon. Friend sits down, would he, as a working dentist, give me information on the effect of this form in which the person who is receiving dental treatment must sign to this effect:
I understand that the dentist may require me to pay the whole or part of this sum before proceeding with treatment.
What effect is that having?

Mr. Baird: Of course, this is one of the points with which I did not deal earlier because I might have been ruled out of order. The reason for this form is as follows. If the dentist does not get the money beforehand, very many patients are too poor to pay him afterwards. Again, I am not speaking for myself, but dentists all over the country carry out treatment and, after the treatment has been finished, they find that the patient did not realise that he would have to pay. As a consequence the dentist suffers. The Regulation has been introduced for that purpose; it gives the dentist the sanction to charge before the treatment, and it is necessary because of the poverty of a large number of the patients attending dentists.

9.33 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Hubbard: I thought that tonight we were dealing on this Prayer with an issue which would be a cause neither of great controversy nor of the hilarity such as we heard during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Baird). The section of


the community with which these Regulations deal consists of people who, because of the very nature of their illness, are the poorest and the least likely to be able to afford not merely the 1s. prescription but the multiple of the 1s. prescription. The more prescriptions they require, the more likely it is that they are unable to work in gainful occupation and the more difficulties they have to meet.
I should have thought that, in dealing with such Regulations, everyone would have been anxious to do something to improve them. I am not surprised to find the difference in the experiences which have been related by hon. Members on this side and hon. Members opposite. It has been said on many occasions by hon. Members opposite that they have not had many complaints about the charges made under the Regulations. That may be true; these are early days in which to receive complaints. When people are sick and require repeated prescriptions, two or three or more, sometimes in the same week, even the 2½d. stamp which is necessary to put a complaint to a Member of Parliament is a matter for vital consideration.
I want to call the attention of the Minister to the way in which the Regulations affect people. I have had experience in the administration of health matters on a town council and since I have been in this House. Probably my greatest experience is from a patient's-eye view, because I must myself have repetitive prescriptions. I know what it means, although I do not complain about it. A few weeks ago I asked a Question about the number of patients who were awaiting admission to a hospital in my constituency. I got the information that the number was only two short of 1,600 for a hospital that had 75 beds.
What does that mean in terms of prescriptions? It means that those people require remedial treatment in a hospital, but meanwhile they have to take medicines to hold the complaint in check, or to give them relief from pain, and in many cases to enable them to continue at their ordinary employment. The longer those people have to wait for hospitalisation the longer they have to go on paying 1s. for prescriptions.
It may well mean that because they have not been able to get hospitalisation they require appliances to keep their illness in check. Some require to work and some are anxious to work, but they must have appliances. Nobody who understands these things imagines that appliances have to be used every day and all day. Many of the people who are awaiting hospitalisation, requiring repeated prescriptions and appliances, work in industries where appliances cannot be used at all times of the day. They may have to change their clothing completely, especially in heavy industries or in the mines. Such people may have to have more than one appliance.
One trouble very often leads to another. Again, I speak with some little knowledge of that matter. In trying by means of appliances to save one part of their bodies these people may strain another part. It is like a snowball that keeps on growing. A miner may require a particular appliance while he is at work and another appliance while he is at home, if he wishes to go out. The same can be said of an engineer and of any worker who sweats profusely while at work.
These are all added difficulties for the sick section of our community. Many people can go for a whole year without requiring a prescription, and to those who are in that happy position 1s. for a prescription does not appear to be very much or anything to raise emotional speeches about. The only people affected by Regulations are those who require prescriptions so many times, and are in difficult circumstances, that the charge becomes a new burden upon them.
I do not want to go into the question of old-age pensioners, but I happen to be the President of the Scottish Old Age Pensioners' Association. Because of that I receive many complaints. They are complaints not merely on behalf of individuals. In Scotland alone there is an organisation with 80,000 members, the Old-Age Pensioners' Association. At their weekly and monthly conferences they complain bitterly of the hardships they are experiencing as a result of these charges. It is true that if they go to a hospital there is not so much lack of dignity about it, but if they go to a chemist's shop there is still a lack of dignity.
It is wrong that those people should be put in a different category simply because they are the poorest section of our community and, because of their age and infirmity, are more likely to need prescriptions frequently. While it would be wrong to go back to the original Act, it would be very wrong if we did not remind the Minister that what is happening now is what we saw so clearly would happen the moment charges were imposed which rested only on a section of the community instead of on the community as a whole.
This is the sort of legislation from which the Minister and the Government should take a lesson. I hope that they will realise that no matter what money a Government may wish to save, it is wrong to impose charges on one section of the community, particularly that which is the worst off, that do not apply to the larger and better-off section. I am satisfied that the Minister, the Chancellor and the Government will not get any satisfaction out of a saving of £30 million more or less. It must worry them that a section of our people must hesitate before getting medicine in order to keep themselves fit.
It must be realised that when we speak in terms of 1s. for a prescription we are not dealing with a sole charge on an individual. It affects people with a number of children who normally go through the processes of children's troubles such as measles, fevers, stomach complaints from taking too much ice cream, and other little upsets.

Mr. Manuel: Too much red meat.

Mr. Hubbard: I do not think that anyone is suffering from that complaint today.
I suggest seriously to the Minister and to the Government that if they really have an interest in the health of the people of the country, not only now but in the generation to come, the ability to keep healthy must not be tied to the ability to pay. If we are to overcome our economic difficulties we can only do so if we have a healthy nation. It is a lesson that we shall learn dearly.
We have read the reports from year to year of the general improvement in the standard of health of our people, of the reduction in infant mortality figures, of the wiping out of many diseases. We

read daily of the results of medical research, of the different remedies that are becoming available. Surely these things must be given in equal measure to everyone. Therefore, these Regulations ought to be annulled. They serve no purpose, they are impractical and they attack the poorest section of the community. They give satisfaction to no one and the quicker they are removed the better for all.

9.45 p.m.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Iain Macleod): In the course of the discussion on these Regulations I have been asked a great number of varied questions, and perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House if I indicated the order in which I should like to try to deal with the problems that are in front of us.
I should like to say a word—only a sentence or two, but it should be recorded—about amenity beds; to take, second, the dental Regulations, on which it is extremely difficult to keep in order; then to discuss the charges, both at hospitals and at the chemists; then, to take together some of the matters like emergency treatment and the rural areas, which have hardly been mentioned; and finally, and much more important, to give the House all the information I can about the working of the charges in the last month. That seems to me to be infinitely the most important part of the discussion as to whether the charges are or are not a suitable vehicle for carrying out the intention of the Government.
The amenity bed Regulation—Statutory Instrument No. 1022—is perfectly simple in that it doubles the charges from 6s. to 12s. for single rooms and from 3s. to 6s. for small wards. The only two things that should be said are, first, that we retain, as the previous Regulation, which we are amending, retained, the proviso that if the normal cost of treatment and maintenance is less than 24s. a day, the proposed charges will be proportionately reduced.
The only other matter that perhaps should be recorded is something about the scope of these beds. There are just under 6,000 of them, 2,700 in mental, including mental deficiency, institutions and 3,200 in the remainder. If all those were occupied on the present charges, there would be an income of about


£400,000 a year; but because, first, a great number of them are required for patients who have urgent medical reasons for the added privacy, and second, because, wherever the fault may lie, there has been inadequate publicity given to these amenity beds, the charges at present are bringing in rather less than half that amount.
In the same sort of way with the double charges, in theory £800,000 should come in. In practice, and owing to the two factors I have mentioned, although we are trying to increase the knowledge about these beds, because it is our experience, certainly in England and Wales, that where their existence is known there is a considerable demand for them, it may be that the amount that will be brought in will be not much more than half of the £800,000.
Let me come to Statutory Instrument No. 1020, relating to charges for dental treatment. It is true that it is essentially a machinery Regulation and that it does not raise directly or indirectly the merits either of the £1 or the full cost charge for dental treatment. Perhaps the only points that I need take up at the moment from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Baird) are his observations about the forms. Later, when I give the results of the last month, perhaps I might comment on one or two of the figures and comments that he made as to the effect of a dental charge during June.
The hon. Member was rather scathing about the dental form—I confess, not being a dentist, that I find it formidable—that dentists have to complete. He said that my predecessor introduced the new form—E.C.17 revised—but the reason that it had to be introduced and the form had to be revised was to cope with the additional work put upon dentists by the dental charges made a year ago.

Mr. Baird: Mr. Baird indicated dissent.

Mr. Macleod: Certainly. The position is that a year ago dentists had to use two forms, E.C.55 and E.C.17 and that the two were later amalgamated. For exactly the same reasons they must again use two forms at the moment—E.C.60 and E.C.17 revised. As soon as we possibly can do it—we could not beat the gun on this matter before the House passed the

Act—we will have available a new, and I concede at this point, an even more complicated form, which will be E.C.17 re-revised.

Mr. Baird: I am sure that the Minister would like to help the profession if he can. The reason why the much more complicated form was introduced was, first, to amalgamate the other two forms, but chiefly to meet the needs of the Dental Estimates Board who wanted to alter the filing system in which they had patients names duplicated. It derives from the bureaucracy at Eastbourne and has nothing to do with the dentists at all.

Mr. Macleod: It is common ground that just as we must amalgamate two forms now, under the legislation of a year ago two forms had to be amalgamated. I welcome suggestions as to the way in which these forms can be simplified.
I come to the great number of questions that were raised about the prescription charge, first in its application to the hospitals. I shall, of course, be dealing later, as I said at the beginning, with the results which my Ministry have gathered from hospitals in England, Wales and Scotland. We shall also give the House the results and estimates as best we can in regard to all the matters raised on prescribing at the chemist's shop. Those figures will show how ludicrously exaggerated were the stories of difficulty which we have heard this afternoon. I am sure that the House will agree that what matters is not flam-buoyant prophecies about what ought to be happening, but the factual reports from the chemists' shops and hospitals on what is happening as a result of these charges.
My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Linstead) invited my attention to a question which arises on Regulation 3 of Statutory Instrument No. 1023 about drugs and appliances. He is perfectly right when he points out that it is possible, owing to the difference in wording between the two Regulations—which was quite deliberate—for the anomaly he indicated to arise. The reason that decision was taken by my predecessor was purely one of administrative convenience and I have no doubt that he is overwhelmingly justified because, otherwise, we would have to ask hospitals to distinguish between those appliances for


which 1s. would be payable under the general practitioner service and all the other infinitely wider range of articles which are likely to be supplied from a hospital outpatients' department. Although my hon. Friend was right in the point he raised, I am certain—I have looked at the matter—that the administrative complications make the method we have adopted very much preferable.
My hon. Friend also raised a matter which, I must confess, was new to me until today and certainly new in the very elaborate debates we have had. He asked me to look into it. This was the question of the disclaimed hospitals and the procedure at present used at such places as the Putney Home for Incurables. I will certainly give the undertaking that I shall go into the matters raised; but in regard to the arrangement which he indicated, which I am sure it is clear to the House is entirely an unofficial one—if a patient is being treated in the way he indicated and is thus using the benefits of the National Health Service, I must say that at first sight I can see no reason why, when the terms of the Health Service are changed, the conditions applicable to all other patients of general practitioners should not equally apply to him. But my hon. Friend asked me to look carefully into the point, and I will certainly do so.

Dr. Stross: Do not patients of this kind fall into a category concerned in a problem which I brought before the Parliamentary Secretary by letter? I refer to bulk prescribing; that is to say, permission is given by local executives to the doctors who attend to prescribe in bulk and, therefore, there is only 1s. for a bulk prescription for the whole home.

Mr. Linstead: May I suggest that the principle applicable in these cases is that which was enunciated at the very beginning of the scheme, namely, that every patient had a right to choose to come into a section of the scheme and remain out of another section of it? It is rather on that principle that the point which I ask my right hon. Friend to consider is founded?

Mr. Macleod: There are a good many exceptions to the principle which my hon. Friend has now enunciated. In so far as it is valid the bulk prescription arrangement normally does not apply to this sort of patient. No alteration has

been made in the arrangements normally carried out for bulk prescribing.
Again, on the question of the appliances and drugs that are dispensed at hospitals, my hon. Friend the Member for Putney also asked me about the position of resident staff. It is quite clear that if they are not being treated in the ward they are in these matters regarded in the same way as the rest of the citizens of this country—I quite agree that there may be exceptions because hospitals have their own methods of dealing with these matters—and would normally be expected to pay the charge.
The next point which comes conveniently here was that raised by the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown). He always puts his points very persuasively, and I should like to help him. As one of his hon. Friends indicated, however, I think he knows what the answer is and that the Regulation in these cases means what it says. In the example he quoted the charge would be made for each appliance, as the Schedule has stated, and indeed as we have understood since the Act was presented.
I should like to add that the picture which the hon. Member was painting seemed in large measure to indicate a much wider range of appliances than are, in fact, being charged for. It is not the case that there is a charge for spinal supports or for ileostomy or colostomy belts. From the way he was speaking I gathered that he might have thought that there was.

Mr. T. Brown: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate the point of view which I expressed about the abdominal belts of men suffering from hernia who have to buy three due to the fact that they work in very high temperatures and consequently perspire very freely. The Minister ought to appreciate that some of our men in the minefields are working in temperatures of 120 degrees—and we have been grumbling about 90 degrees. That excessive perspiration tends to rot the belts that they wear. Consequently, they are called upon to buy belts much more frequently than ordinary persons who suffer from hernia.

Mr. Macleod: I appreciate this point, although as the hon. Member very fairly said, I have not the personal knowledge


which he has. But I am afraid that does not, and cannot, alter the answer which I gave, and which I think he expected.
Still on hospital matters, there was one point which I was invited to answer by the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Hastings), who talked about Regulation 7 and about the accepted disabilities. The answer there is that the definition of the accepted disabilities is not a matter for my Department, but for the Minister of Pensions.
I want to come to the biggest single problem that confronts us, the question of the ordinary drugs, the 1s. on the prescription given at the chemist's shop. I want to say a word about two matters raised from both sides of the House. They refer, not to the patient who is receiving his National Assistance grant, for whom, by and large, I think everyone would agree that the provision is adequate, but to those borderline cases as they have been described, who are either on the border of extreme poverty, even as judged on National Assistance standards, or who, for one reason or another, are too proud—if that be the right word—to make use of a service which, to some people, still retains the old taint of Poor Law.
I feel that there may be some validity in the point that arrangements for such a person are not so clearly laid out as they should be. It may be that by added publicity we can help to meet some of the points which have been made. The poster available to everybody makes it quite clear that these people, not only the people taking grants, but all people, can—subject, of course, to a means test—obtain such remission. The words are:
The National Assistance Board is authorised to assist anyone who can show that his resources are insufficient to meet these charges.
That, of course, does not apply, from the wording, only to those who are receiving National Assistance grants.

Miss Irene Ward: That raises a very important point, because people who, in normal circumstances, have not had recourse to the National Assistance Board would not connect their case with that poster in the chemist's shop. That is the problem which we are most anxious that my right hon. Friend should overcome.

Mr. Macleod: I think I am seized of the point. Of course, we must remember that when the National Assistance Act came in it was provided that health requirements—because an Act was in contemplation—were not to rank for National Assistance grants. The breaches in that were made a year ago by the 1951 Act, and the position, apart from those having grants, is exactly the same in all fields, on the 1s., 5s. and 10s. charges; although for obvious reasons it is unlikely that the 1s. would tip a person over this knife-edge about which we are talking.
The requirements of such a person are now on all fours with the requirements of everybody who for any reason feels his resources are inadequate to meet this or any other charge. Therefore, as an answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Insurance two days ago to the House indicated, the arrangements available for the ordinary cases apply equally to the borderline cases we are discussing.

Miss Ward: May I remind my right hon. Friend that when I asked the Minister of National Insurance—

Mrs. Braddock: When I asked him.

Miss Ward: I do not think the hon. Lady asked this question. When I asked my right hon. Friend whether he could indicate the number of cases that had been dealt with by the Assistance Board under that procedure, he said that the information was not available. That indicated to me that there could not have been a very large number of people, otherwise the information must have been available.

Mr. C. W. Gibson: I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has said that in suitable cases the charge can be paid by the National Assistance Board, whether the person concerned is already receiving National Assistance or not. Will the right hon. Gentleman make sure that his staff and the National Assistance staff know that? Only this week I had a complaint from a man who badly needs assistance who was told that he could not claim from the Assistance Board for health charges because he was not already in receipt of National Assistance. This is a most important point.

Mr. Macleod: I had not heard that there was any difficulty. If necessary, I


will get in touch with my right hon. Friend. On the question of information being available, later I shall be giving some figures which have come in in the last day or two.

Mr. Manuel: On this question of assistance for authorised medicines or appliances, is the decision made on the weekly budget for one week, taking into account clothing, and other necessities? Is it on that assumption that the supplementary assistance will be given?

Mr. Macleod: I am sure that the hon. Member knows that that is a matter for determination by the National Assistance Board. Apart from any question of Ministerial responsibility, it would be highly improper for me to intervene in that matter.
I want to comment also on the point about the arrangements in rural areas, although that question has only just been touched on today. There are, in rural areas, both for chemist contractors and for dispensing doctors, special arrangements which have been agreed upon with the professions concerned. I emphasise again that this is only in rural areas and only in those areas where a considerable proportion of drugs change hands without the supplier and the patient meeting. The arrangement we have made involves the use of postage stamps which may be accepted, and which are to be cancelled by the dispensing doctor or the chemist contractor concerned and rendered in that form to the Executive Council, and so to the Treasury.
There has been—not in this House but in the national Press—a good deal of comment by doctors and others about this arrangement, but it has been worked out very closely with the General Medical Services Committee. This comment has been made by doctors in the "British Medical Journal" and by others.
During the course of our debates on the Act there have been—and it has been hinted again today—comments on the different habits of prescribing in various areas of the country. The allegation is normally made that in what are looked on as the rich, wealthy residential areas the cost of prescribing, and perhaps the number of prescriptions also, is very much higher than it is in the industrial areas. It is a very important point. As far as I can, I have made the closest

study of the returns of all the Executive Councils, and I must confess that I can draw no valid conclusion whatever from them. Anyone who likes to study them can make whatever case he likes.
Perhaps I may give two examples. I do not want to start a private war in this matter, but it seems to me an astonishing thing that at Blackburn the cost per person per year—which is the best guide—is £1 4s. 1½d., whereas in Bolton it is 16s. 2d. The second illustration shows how impossible it is to make any conclusion, because it is said—and, indeed, it is understandable—that because of the patients—the rich, wealthy Tory patients, as they are imagined to be—[Interruption.] Well, if it is not, perhaps the hon. Member can answer this point. If the cost in Bath is £1 2s. 8½d., why is it £1 4s. 10½d. in that other well-known Tory spa of Wigan?

Mr. William Hamilton: Will the Parliamentary Secretary, assuming that she is to speak in this debate, and I hope she is, also give the figures for places like Inverness and Elgin, compared with Hamilton and Kilmarnock, and say why residential areas are at least 50 per cent. up on working-class areas?

Mr. Macleod: We will certainly have a look at the Scottish figures, but when we talk of the highest areas in England let us remember that these figures cover industrial cities like Manchester, Wakefield and Blackburn, residential areas like Blackpool, Southport and Bournemouth, and rural areas like Cornwall and Westmorland. If anyone can draw any conclusion whatever from the facts that I have given, he is a better man than I am.

Mr. Ellis Smith: The Minister has the advantage of us, because he will have seen the figures for days and will have had an opportunity of making an analysis of the returns. Has he himself come to any conclusion as a result of that examination?

Mr. Macleod: Yes, Sir; I have just said that the close study that I made led me to the conclusion that there is no conclusion to be drawn.
The next matter that was raised in relation to the charge in the chemist's shop, which is the last matter that I want to take up in this particular field, because


I want to go on to the question of results, in which most people are interested—was that mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport) about allowances made to the chemists. It is quite true—and we recognise it and have said so in the Regulations and in all the documents that have been issued—that cases are going to arise in which somebody will not call back for a bottle of medicine. It is quite true that cases may arise in which not only a person genuinely has no money, but in which—and this is also essential—the need for that particular medicine is extremely urgent.
We have arranged with the representatives of the chemists that an allowance which works out at one prescription in every 48 will be made to cover these contingencies. How that works out will be in this way. The chemist will receive 1s. for each prescription form paid for, but only 11¾d. will be deducted eventually from his remuneration by the executive council. The arrangements in relation to rural areas are slightly different.

Mr. Linstead: Before my right hon. Friend goes on to his general survey, could he help me over the question I raised of the prescription which extends to more than one form, and say whether it is going to be necessary for a patient to pay 1s., 2s., or 3s. according to whether the prescription runs to one, two or three pieces of paper?

Mr. Macleod: I have looked carefully at that point, but I do not propose to pontificate on it tonight, because I was asked a Question on this matter last week in this House. I said I did not intend to make this a matter of caligraphy, but there are many reasons against what is called the "continuation form." I do not want to go into them in great detail, but I am told that such a form may be an encouragement to what has previously been called "medical shopping." I think that is a valid point.
Secondly, it may be that there would be a danger of adults' and children's prescriptions being dealt with together, and the possibility, so I am informed by those who advise me, that the dosage might be confused. But I have said in this House before that this is one of the matters which I am going to watch carefully as

the scheme develops, and I do not intend in any way to give a final answer to that tonight.

Mr. Frederick Messer: The form could be made bigger.

Mr. Macleod: The form could be made as big as this table, but there would still be immense difficulties. However, I will look into all those matters.
There is one most important matter to which no reference has been made tonight. I think the reason for that is that most people know that it is a matter which has been settled. At the same time, it is one which I think should be on the record. It is that satisfactory arrangements have been made to enable what are called the "five shilling pensioners," those occupying residential accommodation under Part III of the National Assistance Act, to get a refund, and that certain arrangements have been agreed between the local authorities and the representatives of my Department on which I do not need comment further. I know the House will be glad to know that, as indeed was always the intention of my predecessor, these people have been brought within the scheme of exemption from these charges.

Mr. R. Ewart: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman one question in connection with that? It is a matter I intended to raise if I had been called. Will that provision apply to similar persons in residences outside the local authority institutions, such as those run by, say, religious denominations and the kind of institution run by the Salvation Army?

Mr. Macleod: Arrangements have also been made to cover this sort of case. There is a segment of this field where the people looked after by voluntary organisations are the responsibility of local authorities under Section 26 of the National Assistance Act, and that covers the point raised by the hon. Member.
I come now to the most interesting point which has been raised, and that is to see exactly what has been happening as a result of these charges in the shops and hospitals. I have asked for returns, and they have been coming in up to this afternoon and this evening, and have added to the figures I have in my


possession. I have had replies from 14 regional hospital boards, from eight provincial boards of governors, and from 24 London boards of governors. I think that the sample they have been able to offer the House has been of hospitals within their own immediate experience, constituency, or whatever it may be, though the sample has inevitably been small.
I must make a number of reservations before I give these figures and these conclusions. First of all, we must remember—and everybody of course appreciates this—that any conclusions drawn from the first month of a scheme are, or may well be, very faulty. Secondly, we have to bear in mind that this scheme started in the middle of the Whitsun holiday and that complicates some of the reckoning, not only for the first few days but for some time after that. Thirdly, we have to remember that the month of June—and I hope this goes on—has been exceptionally fine, and that of course has a considerable effect in these matters.
Five general conclusions are reached by my senior officials, which they have put before me, as a result of the investigation we have made into hospital charges for drugs and appliances. I think the House will be interested in them. First, there has been no noticeable decline in the number of prescriptions dispensed during June which cannot be accounted for by the Whitsun period and holidays. Second, there has been no evidence of any variation in practice as a result of the charges, for example, the ordering of larger quantities on prescriptions, or repeat prescriptions. Third, there has been no falling off in the number of out-patients. Fourth, there is no noticeable increase in queueing in out-patient departments, but some congestion and delay is occasioned by patients needing advice, explanation, or change of money. Fifth, there are no difficulties consequent upon the introduction of charges for either drugs or appliances.
Really, in view of that evidence, collected as carefully as we have been able to collect it from as wide a sample as we can get, first of all what nonsense is made of some of the speeches we have heard in this House and in Committee. Secondly, it is extremely hard to understand how in the passage of the Bill, now

an Act, we managed to spend a day a line going through it.

Mr. Frederick Willey: The right hon. Gentleman has given the conclusions reached. Would he give the evidence? What is the percentage fall in the number of prescriptions as compared with last year?

Mr. Macleod: If the hon. Member would only wait a moment; I should have thought that it was clear, at least to the rest of the House, that that would be given in about the next sentence or so.

Mrs. Braddock: With reference to the supply of drugs to hospitals, will not the right hon. Gentleman say that hospitals have been informed that they must not raise their drug account or drug purchases at all? Would not that be an indication that no increases were made in the drugs necessary to supply hospitals?

Mr. Macleod: I do not know whether the hon. Lady would like to quote the authority she uses for saying that no hospital must increase its drug bill. I have not heard of it.

Mrs. Braddock: The right hon. Gentleman should make inquiries.

Mr. Macleod: We might well ask for the evidence on that too.
Before we come to the prescription charge, I should like to take up the point made about the effect on dental treatment by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East, subject to what reservations I have made. There has been a substantial fall in the demand for dental treatment during the past month. It is also unquestionably true that a substantial proportion of the estimates submitted have been for those who can claim exemption.
It follows, therefore, that the policy of Her Majesty's Government that where we have not enough resources and enough dentists those most in need shall not go without is being implemented. That figure has to be taken also together with the increase in the number of dentists in the school dental service, which on the full-time basis has gone up in the last six months from 716 to 793. That trend is continuing. Therefore, the teeth of these priority classes will in the future be better looked after than they ever have been.

Mr. Baird: Let us give the right hon. Gentleman that point. Let us assume that, as a result of the charges, the children are going to be treated a little better than they were before. He himself admitted that between 2,000 and 3,000 school dentists were required to get an efficient school dental service. He has not got anything near that number and he is not likely to do so with these charges. Does he not admit that, as a result of these charges, a very large section of the population will allow their teeth to rot because they cannot afford to pay for dental treatment?

Mr. Macleod: That is quite untrue and the hon. Gentleman, as a professional man, must know that that observation is a very silly one. The short answer is that, whatever the ideal number we need, 793 is better than 716.
I want to give the position, as we estimate it this month, in relation to the prescription charges. The general conclusion is that there has been something like a 15 per cent. drop in all. That is again subject, I must say, to all the reservations that have been made about June. I am comparing, as the right hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) did, June with June.

Dr. Stross: In estimating the fall of 15 per cent., has the Minister got any evidence of what is happening to individual prescriptions? Perhaps I may give an example. It appears from evidence that we have got that the tendency is that they are more costly on a percentage basis than they were before. Has the right hon. Gentleman got any evidence yet?

Mr. Macleod: Not on the actual cost. The hon. Gentleman knows the position of pricing in this country. It is impossible to give that information.
On the point which was raised about quantities—and again we have had all this talk about what the doctors would do, how they would pile it on to every form and there would be no saving—I have here 10 replies from the regions on this point. The replies are as follows: Newcastle, no substantial change, tendency to order more for chronics; Leeds, no substantial change; Nottingham, most report increase in tablets but little in liquids, increases usually for chronics;

Cambridge, no substantial change; Reading, no evidence of increase; Bristol, no information; Tunbridge Wells, little general change; Wales, little change; Birmingham, no evidence of change; Manchester, little evidence of change.

Mr. McNeil: The right hon. Gentleman presumably has obtained these reports from pricing bureaux, and if he has them from pricing bureaux presumably he is able to give some kind of answer to the point raised by my hon. Friend?

Mr. Macleod: No, they come from much wider sources than the pricing bureaux. They come from my own regions, executive councils and a great variety of sources. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the pricing is a good deal behind.
On the question of appliances, the National Assistance Board have not yet available full information, but they have made a spot check in two areas, Leicester and St. Pancras, and the results are as follows in this month. Number of applications for relief from the charges: appliances—Leicester, four, of whom three were already in receipt of assistance; St. Pancras, no applications. For prescriptions—Leicester, 10 applications, eight of whom were in receipt of assistance; St. Pancras, 10 applications, 10 of which were in receipt of assistance. It is fair to add that those figures exclude people who have made use of the automatic method of refund through the General Post Office; but that merely strengthens the point that that part of the scheme is working extremely well.
Since we have been asked questions about Scotland, perhaps I might give the National Assistance Board figures for Scotland, subject to the comments that I have made. From 1st to 24th June, on prescriptions by family doctors, the number of applications to the National Assistance Board was 272 out of one million—that is all—and out of that number 176 persons were already in receipt of National Assistance. The figures that I have given prove that there is extremely little dissatisfaction with the scheme. Unless the hospitals and the regions are making false returns that is unquestionably true.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the cost of the posters—

Mr. Manuel: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The Prayers we are considering cover Scotland and a Scottish Minister is sitting on the Government Front Bench. Can we have an assurance that a Scottish Minister will deal with the position in Scotland, or is it to be dismissed in two lines by an English Minister?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): I cannot call either an Englishman or a Scotsman unless he rises to his feet.

Mr. Macleod: The right hon. Gentleman asked about the cost of the posters and the cost of the additional forms in a full year. He seemed to imply that the figures were astronomical. I have given them in the House in reply to a Question. In a full year the posters for England and Wales cost £203, and the estimated cost in a full year of the forms that have been brandished round the House today is £4,862.
The real question lying behind the debate is whether or not the Regulations and, in particular, the "bob" on the prescription will work. The Leader of the Opposition said at Nottingham 10 days ago:
The prescription charges plan was put up to us We found it would not work. They have no ideas of their own"—
"They" are the Tories—
so they picked it up like a boy picking up a banana skin and, naturally, slipped on it.
I do not know how one manages to pick up a banana skin and slip on it, but it just shows the dangers that attend these colourful ventures into speech.
But what is of the first importance—because we have heard that said again tonight—is when the Socialist Party came to the conclusion that these Regulations, which they are going to oppose in the Lobby, would not work. Presumably it was not when the Leader of the Opposition made his announcement as Prime Minister that there would be such a charge. Presumably it was not a few months later when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) piloted this provision through the House. Presumably it was not in 1950, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Cripps, said,
The power to charge will, of course, remain so that it can be used later if it is needed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th April, 1950; Vol. 474, c. 60.]

Finally, to come a little closer to the twins sitting opposite, the right hon. Member for Greenock and the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), a year ago they introduced the 1951 Act and they took power in Section 2 to make the requirements of the National Assistance Act applicable to Section 16 of the National Health Service Act; and presumably they thought even a year ago, within a few weeks of their going out of office, that this scheme would work.

Mr. Marquand: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman since I hope to address the House very soon, if I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker; but the right hon. Gentleman has said all this before, and he knows perfectly well that in my Second Reading speech on the Bill, as it then was, I said definitely and in some detail why we rejected a prescription charge.

Mr. Macleod: If the right hon. Gentleman rejected a prescription charge, it seems a most extraordinary thing to do to waste the time of the House in taking provision to send these people to the National Assistance Board. We were used to the right hon. Gentleman filibustering on our Health Service Bill, but I did not realise that he was filibustering also on his own Bill. It seems to me that it is not this Government which slipped on this banana skin.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the point, I asked him a serious point about the Social Survey, which I think he will agree gives very important information for the purpose of trying to estimate what the effect of these charges will be.

Mr. Macleod: The answer has been given in the economic debates previously by representatives of the Treasury, and the answer is that in the circumstances of the country at the time we simply did not think the money spent on that part of the Social Survey worth the information we were getting from it.
These Regulations and, in particular, the shilling on the prescription charge rest on three pillars. They implement, first of all, the undertaking given to the House by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. They rely for their statutory authority on Section 16 of the


1949 Act piloted through the House by the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale. They rely for their National Assistance provisions, finally, on the arrangements so conveniently made by the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who piloted the Bill, and I myself, who present these Regulations, have been no more than the doctor and midwife to the child they have conceived.

10.39 p.m.

Mr. H. A. Marquand: It is a little hard to determine whether the loud applause which greeted the right hon. Gentleman when he resumed his seat is a tribute to the political matter which he introduced at the end or to the fact that at last we have a Minister of Health who at least has been able to give the House of Commons some explanation of what his Measures are all about. [Laughter.] It is welcome indeed. I think hon. Members opposite know perfectly well what my reference was. [Interruption.] We know that there are conspicuous examples of some hon. Members whose form of debating during the last Parliament was to giggle and laugh on all occasions, and who have succeeded thereby in getting into the Government. But it is not likely that any vacancies will be provided for them in the future, so they had better get jobs in the Conservative Central Office and see whether they can get in that way.
We are grateful for such factual information as the right hon. Gentleman has been able to give us tonight about what has happened as a result of the working of these charges. If, in addition to being a skilful and not unsuccessful politician, he also wishes to be a good Minister of Health, he will, in spite of the usual political interchanges, take careful note of what many of my hon. Friends have said in this debate. He will not brush aside too lightly the evidence and information that they have brought forward from their practical knowledge of the conditions in which our people live, and the way the National Health Service works.
He will not too easily persuade himself that all is going well, and I hope he will, in particular, pay attention to the suggestions of my hon. Friend the Member

for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop), namely that, although there may be some arguments on the grounds of economy for the dropping of the sickness survey before these charges came into operation, the sort of evidence that has been produced tonight and the doubts that genuinely exist in the minds of many people engaged in the Health Service, do make it most reasonable that the sickness survey should be re-instituted.
Let us watch carefully and be sure we get the sample information from all over the country as to what is really happening so that next time we come to debate these charges—perhaps when the Ministry of Health Estimates are presented—we may have some opportunity of really knowing what the effect has been in detail.
The right hon. Gentleman gave us some views about the effect of the prescription charge in the out-patients' departments of hospitals, and he said that no very great change seemed to have taken place. In particular there was no general evidence of the prescribing of larger quantities of drugs. I do not think any reasonable person would have expected that result in out-patient departments of hospitals which, after all, are run under the regional hospital boards, under the close direction and control of his own Department. It was not there we feared there might be increased prescribing.
It is a pity he could not have given us fuller information than he was able to do about what has been the main topic of the debate today—very naturally—that is the prescription charge in relation to the general practitioner service. It was very naturally the main topic of the debate. Much was said during the debate on the Bill quite recently about charges in out-patient departments, charges for dental treatment and surgical appliances. The general practitioner charge for prescriptions came under the 1949 Act, and though some references were made to it, there was no other discussion.
Naturally, then, tonight most of the discussion turned upon that. I shall confine my remarks, which I will endeavour to make as brief as possible, to that part of the Service. As the right hon. Gentleman said, we have had only five weeks at


most in which to watch the working of this charge. During that five weeks we have had a holiday, we have had fine weather, and it is a period of the year anyway in which illness and disease are not normally heavily prevalent, certainly nothing like they are in the winter. But it is remarkable, in view of that fact, in view of the short period in which the charges have been in operation, and in view of the unusually favourable circumstances in regard to the prevalence of illness and weather, that there has been brought forward tonight so much evidence as has in fact come forward.
I thought that a 15 per cent. drop in prescriptions was a substantial change, comparing one June with another, in so for as we can form judgments on so short a period of experience. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to be complacent about this side of the matter as well as about the hospital side, and there was almost a rubbing of the hands with glee by his hon. Friends behind him which seemed to me to be entirely mistaken.
The hon. Members for Putney (Mr. Linstead) and Reigate (Mr. Vaughan-Morgan) said that they had had very few complaints. The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport) actually said that the schemes were working with surprising smoothness—a hasty generalisation to make on so short a period of experience, and a hasty generalisation to make in view of the evidence that had been supplied by some of my hon. Friends behind me.
I suggest there are two explanations of the difference that exists between us on this matter, apart from any party differences and any prejudices with which people may approach the topic. One is the explanation to which I have already alluded: that it is summer time. The other is the explanation of geography. Hon. Members opposite who spoke with such complacency represented Putney, Reigate, Colchester—

Mr. Fort: And Clitheroe.

Mr. Marquand: The hon. Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Fort) may have spoken too, but if so his observations escaped my attention. If he wants to be included in being called complacent, by all means let him be so and let it go on record. If I understood the hon. Member for Putney aright, he said he did

not understand why a greater fall in prescriptions had taken place in the North rather than in the South. If he would only come north with me some time to Middlesbrough, I could explain to him the difference on the spot.
I could point out to him the difference between the North of England, where, on the whole, a far greater proportion of the national wealth of this country is made, and the South of England where a far greater proportion of the national wealth of this country is consumed. That is the difference. The hon. Gentleman would not speak of occasional hard cases if he could come with me into certain parts of my constituency. We are bound to speak from our own experience of this matter; it is the only really reliable evidence that any of us can have at this moment. If he had come with me into the poorer parts of my constituency the week-end before last, when I talked to the chemists, he would have found that these cases are not occasional hard cases in such areas. These are areas in which people have hard times all their lives and to whom the extra imposition comes as a heavy burden.

Mr. Linstead: As the right hon. Gentleman has referred to me, my constituency is a typical suburban London constituency with a substantial industrial element in it, of whom nearly 25,000 voted for my opponent. From that constituency I have had one letter of protest only.

Mr. Marquand: I get comparatively few letters from my political opponents, too. I suppose because they have no faith in me and they have the hon. and learned Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Simon) to look after them. In exactly the same way the hon. Member for Putney has remarkably few letters from opponents because there are plenty of good Labour Members in London to whom they can write if they want guidance. But I will come to that point in a moment because I have some evidence to give to the House about it. I want to say, first, that we all agreed with the hon. Member for Putney when he paid tribute to the zealous care and attention with which the chemists are trying to do their best for their customers at this time.
I was very much impressed by the attitude adopted by the men to whom I


spoke in my constituency, who have now become, not so much public relations officers for the Ministry of Health, but welfare officers for their own customers and relieving officers at the same time in some cases. The chemist today, knowing his customers in these districts, where the labourers in the great steel works live, recognises such people when they come into the shop and proceeds to indicate to them what is available in the way of relief from payment for prescriptions. They told me that people come frequently into their shops in such districts and look anxiously around them to be sure no one else is there before they say in a whisper that they are on national assistance; what must they do about it?
This, of course, is not confined to the industrial areas of the north because, as the hon. Member for Putney readily says, even in the most prosperous districts there are areas of poverty and hardship. I have in front of me a letter which was sent by a responsible person in a seaside resort who had been asked among others to return to the Minister answers to the questions which the right hon. Gentleman told us about tonight. I shall not weary the House with the whole letter; I just want to make this quotation from it:
The general impression was that there was no difference being experienced in the number of prescriptions dispensed except by chemists with pharmacists in the poorest working class areas.
So what is true of an area like Middlesbrough, in which there are huge working class areas, is also true in areas like seaside resorts and pleasant and agreeable places like Putney. This blow has been felt severely.
It has never been claimed from this side of the House that the imposition of a prescription charge of 1s. would cause hardship to everybody. Far from it. We based our case on the claim that the hardship would be caused to the poor. They, fortunately, after six years of Labour rule, are not as numerous as they used to be. We have admitted that the numbers involved may be comparatively small. They may be equal to the three or four million, for example, who draw the retirement pension. Some of the retirement pensioners can meet the

charge, but we must include other classes who cannot. Most serious and significant of all to my mind was the statement made to me by one of a chemist—I hope the House will accept my assurance that I did not ask tendentious questions at all; I asked the questions objectively in the presence of another person, who was not a member of any political party, so that the whole thing could be above board and not suspect in any way of bias.
He said to me, "The most serious effect that we see so far "—and I have admitted that the experience is brief—"is not so much upon the old-age pensioners or even upon the adults whom we know to be living on National Assistance. It is on the children. It is those who we know to be the mothers of large families whom we have found not to be coming to the shop so often as they used to do." And the doctors confirm that tendency.
There is a tendency—there is bound to be—among the mothers of large families, living upon a labourer's wage, in those difficult conditions, to hold back from going to the doctor. As I have said before, one of the greatest benefits of our National Health Service—indeed, the greatest benefit of all—was the way in which it relieved such a mother of anxiety about her children's health. It enabled her to feel that she could freely go to the doctor when her children needed attention, that she could place her difficulties, anxieties and doubts in front of the doctor and get him to deal with them. The onset and the spread of illness have been checked by those means, and the danger is that that will cease.
I said on the Second Reading of the Bill which imposed the charges on the out-patient departments and all the rest, that I thought that this business would end in mess and muddle. I have heard nothing tonight to make me wish to change that forecast. I still believe that it will do so. I believe that evidence is growing of a growing complaint. The volume of complaint has not yet anywhere nearly reached its maximum dimensions. As the weather changes, as we pass into winter, as the onset of disease increases, the number of complaints that even the hon. Member for Putney will get will exceed all his expectations, and he will be very sorry that he was so complacent tonight in the House of Commons.
We have had an exploratory debate in the interests of our constituents. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that our rules about the number of days within which Prayers can be tabled have made it necessary to bring the Prayers on as early as this date. It is a pity that more time could not have been taken to study in some detail the effects of the charges, but such evidence as we have had tonight makes us believe that we were right in the stand that we took against the imposition of these charges.
It has been suggested that some of those who spoke earlier from this side of the House might have been inciting their constituents to break the law. That is certainly not true. That has been denied already, and I think the denial has been accepted. Nothing would be further from our thoughts and intentions than to incite people to break the law. I must, however, warn the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends that it is extremely difficult to enforce any law which has no moral sanction behind it, and he will find it increasingly difficult as the days pass.

Mr. Edward Heath (Lord Commissioner of the Treasury): rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question,
That are humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the National Health Service (Charges for Dental Treatment) Regulations, 1952 (S.I., 1952, No. 1020), dated 23rd May, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23rd May, be annulled,

put accordingly, and negatived.

Motion made, and Question put,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the National Health Service (Charges for Drugs and Appliances) Regulations, 1952 (S.I., 1952, No. 1021), dated 23rd May, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23rd May, be annulled.—[Mr. Marquand.]

The House divided: Ayes. 235; Noes, 254.

Division No. 188.]
AYES
[11.0 p.m.


Acland, Sir Richard
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)


Adams, Richard
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)


Allen, Sholefield (Crewe)
Crossman, R. H. S.
Hamilton, W. W.


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Cullen, Mrs. A.
Hannan, W.


Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)
Daines, P.
Hargreaves, A.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Hastings, S


Awbery, S. S.
Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Hayman, F H.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)
Healey, Denis (Leeds, S. E.)


Baird, J.
Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
'Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)


Balfour, A.
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Herbison, Miss M.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Hobson, C. R


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Holman, P


Bence, C. R.
Deer, G.
Holt, A. F.


Benson, G
Delargy, H. J
Houghton, Douglas


Beswick, F.
Dodds, N. N.
Hoy, J. H.


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A (Ebbw Vale)
Donnelly, D. L.
Hubbard, T. F.


Bing, G. H. C.
Driberg, T. E. N
Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)


Blackburn, F.
Dugdale, Rt Hon. John (W. Bromwich)
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)


Blenkinsop, A.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)


Blyton, W. R.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Boardman, H.
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
Hynd, H. (Accrington)


Bottomley, Rt. Hon A. G.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)


Bowen, E. R.
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)


Bowles, F. G.
Evans. Stanley (Wednesbury)
Irving, W J. (Wood Green)


Braddook, Mrs. Elizabeth
Ewart, R.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G A


Brockway, A. F.
Fernyhough, E.
Janner, B


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Field, W J.
Jay, Rt. Hon D P T.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Fienburgh, W.
Jeger, Dr. Santo (St Paneras, S.)


Brawn, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Finch, H. J.
Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)
Johnson, James (Rugby)


Burke, W. A.
Follick, M.
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)


Burton, Miss F. E
Foot, M M
Jones, David (Hartlepool)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Freeman, John (Watford)
Jones, Frederick Elwyn (West Ham, S.)


Callaghan, L. J.
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)


Carmichael, J.
Gibson, C. W.
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)


Castle, Mrs. B. A
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C
Keenan, W.


Champion, A. J
Grenfell Rt. Hon. D. R.
Kenyon, C


Chapman, W. D.
Grey, C. F.
King, Dr. H. M.


Chetwynd, G. R.
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Lee, Frederick (Newton)


Clunie, J.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanehy)
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)


Cocks, F. S.
Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Lewis, Arthur


Coldrick, W.
Grimond, J.
Lindgren, G. S.


Collick, P. H.
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Logan, D. G.




McGhee, H. G.
Pearson, A.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


McInnes, J.
Plummer, Sir Leslie
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


McKay, John (Wallsend)
Porter, G.
Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)


McLeavy, F.
Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)
Thomas, David (Aberdare)


MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)
Proctor, W. T.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


McNeil, Rt. Hon. H.
Pryde, D. J.
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Pursey, Cmdr. H
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


Mainwaring, W. H.
Rankin, John
Turner-Samuels, M


Mann, Mrs. Jean
Reeves, J.
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Manuel, A. C.
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)
Wade, D. W.


Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Reid, William (Camlachie)
Watkins, T. E.


Mayhew, C. P.
Rhodes, H.
Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford, C.)


Mellish, R. J.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. A.
Weitzman, D.


Messer, F.
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Mitchison, G. R.
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)
Wells, William (Walsall)


Monslow, W.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
West, D. G.


Moody, A. S.
Ross, William
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.
Royle, C.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N. E.)


Morley, R.
Schofield, S. (Barnsley)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Shackleton, E. A. A.
Wigg, George Wilkins, W. A.


Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, S)
Short, E. W.
Wilkens, W. A.


Mort, D. L.
Shurmer, P. L. E.
Willey, Frederick (Sunderland, N)


Moyle, A.
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)
Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)


Nally, W.
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)


Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.
Slater, J.
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


Oldfield, W. H.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Oliver, G. H.
Snow, J. W.
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)


Orbach, M.
Sorensen, R. W.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A


Oswald, T.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Wyatt, W. L.


Padley, W. E.
Sparks, J. A.
Yates, V. F.


Paling, Rt. Hon. W (Dearne Valley)
Steele, T
Younger, Rt. Hon. K.


Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E)



Pannell, Charles
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Pargiter, G. A.
Stross, Dr. Barnett
Mr. Popplewell and


Parker, J.
Swingler, S. T.
Mr. Horace Holmes.


Paton, J.
Sylvester, G. O.





NOES


Aitken, W. T.
Cole, Norman
Harden, J. R. E.


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Colegate, W. A.
Hare, Hon. J. H.


Alport, C J. M.
Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Cooper, Sqn. Ldr Albert
Harris, Reader (Heston)


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Cooper-Key, E. M.
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)


Arbuthnot, John
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)


Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Cranborne, Viscount
Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R. (Blackburn, W.)
Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H F. C.
Harvie-Watt, Sir George


Aster, Hon. W. W. (Bucks, Wycombe)
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Heaid, Sir Lionel


Baker, P. A. D.
Crouch, R. F.
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr, J. M.
Crowder, Sir John (Finchlay)
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)


Baldwin, A. E.
Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount


Banks, Col C.
Davidson, Viscountess
Hirst, Geoffrey


Barber, A. P. L.
De la Bère, Sir Rupert
Holland-Martin, C. J.


Barlow, Sir John
Deedes, W. F.
Hollis, M. C.


Beach, Maj Hicks
Digby, S. Wingfield
Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)


Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Hopkhison, Rt. Hon. Henry


Ball, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.


Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)
Dormer, P. W.
Horobin, I. M.


Bennett, Sir Peter (Edgbaslon)
Doughty, C. J. A.
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)


Bennett, William (Woodside)
Drayton, G. B.
Howard, Greville (St. Ives)


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)


Birch, Nigel
Duthie, W. S.
Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)


Bishop, F. P.
Eccles, Rt. Hon. D. M.
Hulbert, Wing Cmdr. N. J.


Black, C. W.
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E
Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A
Fall, A.
Hutchison, Lt.-Com, Clark (E'b'rgh W.)


Boyle, Sir Edward
Finlay Graeme
Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)


Braine, B. R.
Fisher, Nigel
Hyde, Lt.-Col. H. M.


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N. W.)
Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.
Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Fort, R
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)


Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)
Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)
Jennings, R.


Brooman-White, R. C.
Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)


Browne, Jack (Govan)
Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)


Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.
Gammans, L. D.
Jones, A. (Hall Green)


Bullard, D. G.
Garner-Evans, E. H.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.


Bullus, Wing Commander, E. E.
George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd
Kaberry, D


Burden, F. F. A.
Glyn. Sir Ralph
Keeling, Sir Edward


Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Godber, J. B.
Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)


Carson, Hon. E.
Gomme-Dunoan, Col. A.
Lambton, Viscount


Cary, Sir Robert
Gough, C F. H.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.


Channon, H.
Gower, H. R.
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S.
Graham, Sir Fergus
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H


Clarice, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Legh, P. R. (Petersfield)


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Grimston, Sir Robert (Wastbury)
Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.







Linstead, H. N.
Nugent, G. R. H.
Stevens, G. P.


Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norton)
Oakshott, H. D
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)


Lloyd, Maj Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Odey, G. W.
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Antrim, N.)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Storey, S


Longden, Gilbert (Herts, S. W.)
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Low, A. R. W.
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Stuart, Rt Hon. James (Moray)


Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Osborne, C.
Summers, G. S.


Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)
Partridge, E.
Sutcliffe, H.


Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


McAdden, S. J.
Perkins, W. R. D.
Teeling, W


Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)
Peyton, J W. W.
Thomas, Rt. Hon J. P. L. (Hereford)


Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


McKibbin, A. J.
Pilkington, Capt. R. A
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)


McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Pitman, I. J.
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn. Peter (Monmouth)


Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Powell, J. Enoch
Thomton-Kemsley, Col. C. N


MacLeod, Rt. Hon. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Tilney, John


MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.
Touche, Sir Gordon


Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Profumo, J. D.
Turner, H. F. L.


Macpherson, Maj. Niall (Dumfries)
Raikes, H, V.
Turton, R. H.


Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)
Redmayne, M.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Manningham-Buller, Sir R. E
Ronton, D. L. M.
Vane, W. M. F.


Markham, Major S. F.
Roberts, Peter (Heeley)
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K


Marlowe, A. A. H.
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)
Vosper, D. F.


Marples, A. E.
Robson-Brown, W.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Marshall, Sir Sidney (Sutton)
Roper, Sir Harold
Ward, Hon George (Worcester)


Maude, Angus
Russell, R. S.
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Maudiing, R.
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr S. L. C
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur
Webbe, Sir H. (London &amp; Westminster)


Medlicott, Brig. F.
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W. (Rochdale)
Wellwood, W.


Mellor, Sir John
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.
White, Baker (Canterbury)


Molson, A. H. E.
Shepherd, William
Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)


Monckton, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Molt-Radclyffe, C E.
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)
Wills, G.


Nabarro, G. D. N.
Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Nicholls, Harmar
Snadden, W McN
Wood, Hon. R.


Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
Soames, Capt. C.



Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)
Spearman, A. C M
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Nield, Basil (Chester)
Speir, R M.
Mr. Butcher and


Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Mr. Edward Heath.


Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the National Health Service (Hospital Charges for Drugs and Appliances) (Scotland) Regulations, 1952 (S.I.,

1952, No. 1025), dated 23rd May, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23rd May, be annulled.—[Mr. Marquatud.]

The House divided: Ayes, 233; Noes, 251.

Division No. 189.]
AYES
[11.10 p.m.


Acland, Sir Richard
Burton, Miss F. E.
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)


Adams, Richard
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Callaghan, L. J.
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Carmichael, J.
Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)


Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)
Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Ewart, R.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Champion, A J.
Fernyhough, E.


Awbery, S. S.
Chapman, W. D.
Field, W. J.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Chetwynd, G. R
Fienburgh, W.


Baird, J.
Clunie, J.
Finch, H. J.


Balfour, A.
Cocks, F. S
Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)


Barnes, Rt. Hon A. J.
Coldrick, W.
Follick, M.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Collick, P. H.
Foot, M. M.


Bence, C. R.
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Freeman, John (Watford)


Benson, G.
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon H. T. N.


Beswick, F.
Crossman, R. H S.
Gibson, C. W.


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Daines, P.
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C


Bing, G. H. G.
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.


Blackburn, F.
Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Grey, C. F.


Blenkinsop, A.
Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)


Blyton, W. R.
Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)


Boardman, H.
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Griffiths, William (Exchange)


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Grimond, J.


Bowen, E. R.
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)


Bowles, F. G.
Deer, G.
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Delargy, H. J
Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)


Brockway, A. F.
Dodds, N. N.
Hamilton, W. W.


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Donnelly, D. L.
Hannan, W.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Driberg, T. E. N.
Hargreaves, A.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)
Hastings, S.


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Hayman, F. H.


Burke, W. A.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Healey, Denis (Leeds, S.E.)




Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)
Mitchison, G. R
Slater, J.


Herbison, Miss M.
Monslow, W.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Hobson, C. R.
Moody, A S.
Snow, J. W.


Holman, P.
Morgan, Dr. H. B. W
Sorensen, R. W.


Holt, A. F.
Morley, R
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Houghton, Douglas
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Sparks, J. A.


Hoy, J. H.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, S.)
Steele, T.


Hubbard, T. F.
Mort, D. L
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Moyle, A.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Nally, W.
Stross, Dr. Barnett


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Swingler, S, T.


Hughes. Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J
Sylvester, G. O.


Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Oldfield, W. H.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Oliver, G. H.
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Orbach, M.
Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)


Irving, W J. (Wood Green)
Oswald, T.
Thomas, David (Aberdare)


Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Padley, W. E.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Janner, B.
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


Jeger, Dr. Santo (St. Pancras, S.)
Pannell, Charles
Turner-Samuels, M.


Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)
Pargiter, G. A.
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Johnson, James (Rugby)
Parker, J.
Wade, D. W.


Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Paton, J.
Watkins, T. E.


Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Pearson, A.
Webb, Rt. Hon. M (Bradford, C)


Jones, Frederick Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Plummer, Sir Leslie
Weitzman, D.


Jones, Jack (Rolherham)
Porter, G.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)
Wells, William (Walsall)


Keenan, W.
Proctor, W. T.
West, D. G.


Kenyon, C.
Pryde, D. J.
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


King, Dr. H. M.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N. E.)


Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Rankin, John
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Reeves, J.
Wigg, George


Lewis, Arthur
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)
Wilkins, W. A.


Lindgren, G. S.
Reid, William (Camlachie)
Willey, Frederick (Sunderland, N)


Logan, D. G.
Rhodes, H.
Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)


McGhee, H. G.
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


McInnes, J.
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)


McKay, John (Wallsend)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


McLeavy, F.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


McNeil, Rt. Hon. H.
Ross, William
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)


MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Royle, C.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A


Mainwaring, W. H.
Schofield, S. (Barnsley)
Wyatt W. L.


Mann, Mrs Jean
Shackleton, E. A. A
Yates, V F.


Manuel, A. C.
Short, E. W
Younger, Rt. Hon K.


Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Shurmer, P. L. E.



Mayhew, C. P.
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Mellish, R. J.
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Mr. Popplewell and


Messer, F.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)
Mr. Horace Holmes.




NOES


Aitken, W. T.
Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G T.
Duthie, W. S.


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Bullard, D. G.
Eccles, Rt. Hon. D. M.


Alport, C. J. M.
Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Burden, F. F. A.
Fell, A.


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Butcher, H. W.
Finlay, Graeme


Arbuthnot, John
Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Fisher, Nigel


Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Carson, Hon. E.
Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R. (Blackburn, W.)
Cary, Sir Robert
Fort, R.


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Bucks, Wycombe)
Channon, H.
Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)


Baker, P. A. D.
Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S.
Galbraith, Cmdr. T D. (Pollok)


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Clarke, Col, Ralph (East Grinstead)
Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)


Baldwin, A. E.
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Gammans, L. D.


Banks, Col. C.
Cole, Norman
Garner-Evans, E H


Barber, Anthony
Colegate, W. A.
George, Rt. Hon. Maj G. Lloyd


Barlow, Sir John
Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert
Glyn, Sir Ralph


Beach, Maj. Hicks
Cooper-Key, E. M.
Godber, J. B.


Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Gomme-Duncan, Col. A


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Cranborne, Viscount
Gough. C F. H.


Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)
Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon H. F. C
Gower, H. R.


Bennett, Sir Peter (Edgbaston)
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Graham, Sir Fergus


Bennett, William (Woodside)
Crouch, R. F.
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)


Birch, Nigel
Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)
Harden, J. R. E.


Bishop, F. P.
Davidson, Viscountess
Hare, Hon. J. H.


Black, C. W.
Do la Bère, Sir Rupert
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A
Deedes, W. F.
Harris, Reader (Heston)


Boyle, Sir Edward
Digby, S. Wingfield
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)


Braine, B. R.
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N.W.)
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA
Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Donner, P. W.
Harvie-Watt, Sir George


Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)
Doughty, C. J. A
Heald, Sir Lionel


Brooman-White, R. C.
Drayson, G. B.
Heath, Edward


Browne, Jack (Govan)
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)







Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Macpherson, Maj. Niall (Dumfries)
Schofield, Lt.-Col W. (Rochdale)


Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R


Hirst, Geoffrey
Manningham-Buller, Sir R. E
Shepherd, William


Holland-Martin, C. J.
Markham, Major S. F.
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W)


Hollis, M. C.
Marlowe, A. A H.
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter


Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)
Marples, A. E.
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Hopkinson, Rt. Hon. Henry
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)
Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)


Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Marshall, Sir Sidney (Sutton)
Snadden, W. McN.


Horobin, I. M.
Maude, Angus
Soames, Capt. C.


Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Maudling, R.
Spearman, A C. M.


Howard, Greville (St. Ives)
Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.
Speir, R. M.


Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)
Medlicott, Brig. F.
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)


Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Mellor, Sir John
Stevens, G. P


Hulbert, Wing Cmdr. N. J.
Molson, A. H. E.
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)


Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)
Monckton, Rt. Hon. Sir Waller
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Hutchison, Lt.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Stoddart-Scott, Col, M


Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Storey, S.


Hyde, Lt.-Col, H. M.
Nabarro, G. D. N.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.
Nicholls, Harmar
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
Summers, G. S.


Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E)
Sutcliffe, H.


Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)
Nield, Basil (Chester)
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Jones, A. (Hall Green)
Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. P. L. (Hereford)


Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.
Nugent, G. R. H.
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Kaberry, D.
Oakshott, H. D.
Thompson, Lf.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)


Keeling, Sir Edward
Odey, G. W.
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn. Peter (Monmouth)


Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Antrim, N.)
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.


Lambton, Viscount
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Tilney, John


Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Touche, Sir Gordon


Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Turner, H. F. L.


Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H
Osborne, C.
Turton, R. H.


Legh, P. R. (Petersfield)
Partridge, E.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.
Vane, W. M. F,


Linslead, H. N.
Perkins, W. R. D.
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norton)
Peyton, J. W. W.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.
Pitman, I. J.
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Longden, Gilbert (Herts, S. W.)
Powell, J. Enoch
Waterhouse, Capt Rt. Hon. C.


Low, A. R. W.
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Webbe, Sir H. (London &amp; Westminster)


Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Prior-Palmer, Brig O. L.
Weliwood, W.


Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)
Profumo, J. D.
White, Baker (Canterbury)


Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Raikes, H. V.
Williams, Rt, Hon. Charles (Torquay)


McAdden, S. J.
Redmayne, M.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)
Renton, D. L. M.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Roberts, Peter (Heeley)
Wills, G.


McKibbin, A. J.
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Robson-Brown, W.
Wood, Hon. R


Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)



Macleod, Rt. Hon. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Roper, Sir Harold
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)
Russell, R. S.
Major Conant and Mr. Vosper.


Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur

Motion made, and Question,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the National Health Service (Charges for Drugs and Appliances) (Scotland) Regulations, 1952 (S.I., 1952, No. 1026), dated 23rd May, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23rd May, be annulled.—[Mr. McNeil.]

put, and negatived.

Motion made, and Question,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the National Health Service (General Dental Services

Charges) (Scotland) Regulations, 1952 (S.I., 1952, No. 1027), dated 23rd May, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23rd May, be annulled.—[Mr. McNeil.]

put, and negatived.

Motion made, and Question,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the National Health Service (Charges for Hospital Accommodation) (Scotland) Regulations, 1952 (S.I., 1952, No. 1028), dated 23rd May, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23rd May, be annulled.—[Mr. McNeil.]

put, and negatived.

SCHOOL CROSSINGS, LICHFIELD

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Kaberry.]

11.23 p.m.

Mr. Julian Snow: The subject of my Adjournment Motion tonight is connected with the desirability of examining what can be done to prevent children being massacred on the roads, and those hon. Members who are leaving the Chamber and jeering about the subject are ill-advised—

Mr. Speaker: I ask hon. Members to pass from the Chamber quietly and without talking.

Mr. Snow: I was saying that those hon. Members are ill-advised because no subject is worthy of greater attention than this one.
I want to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport to the problem which exists in the City of Lichfield at the intersection of two trunk roads, A 38, which is the Exeter—Leeds trunk road, and A 51, which, in local terms, runs from Stafford to Lichfield. I might add, in parenthesis, that if the Levetts Fields by-pass of Lichfield, which has been the subject of two deputations to the Minister, were accepted—it is a project which could be put into operation very cheaply indeed—much of what I have to say tonight would not arise. However, that can wait for another time.
The problem is largely, though by no means entirely, related to the school safety issue. I have evidence here from the council of the City of Lichfield, from the Staffordshire police and also from the headmistress of the school chiefly concerned—the Friary School at Lichfield. The town clerk of the City of Lichfield, in a letter to me, has said:
The City Council consider that two zebra crossings for these main thoroughfares through the city are entirely inadequate and that pedestrians in the centre of the city are exposed to very great danger, having regard to the heavy traffic.
The Staffordshire police say that their view is very much the same. The words, in fact, are:
the police consider that the installation of zebra crossings in Friary Road and St. John's

Street is the obvious solution and one they strongly support.
I shall refer later to the comments of the headmistress of the school in question, although there are other schools involved. The only possibly contentious remark I shall make tonight—and it is not very contentious—is that I think in his speech of 20th June to the House, the Parliamentary Secretary—and I shall quote him—made a remark which I think may possibly be misconstrued in certain parts of the country. He said in that speech—and I quote from HANSARD, column 1800:
We are convinced that it is unwise and unfair to entrust schoolchildren, especially the very young, to the purely legal safeguard of art uncontrolled pedestrian crossing. Where children have to cross really busy roads on their way to and from school, anything less than some form of positive control can be worse than useless."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 20th June, 1952; Vol. 502, c. 1800.]
I must say that I do not entirely share that view, and one of the questions I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary tonight is this: what precisely is the role of the divisional road engineer in these cases? Because evidence which I have here—and as a matter of fact I have sent some of it to the Parliamentary Secretary for him to examine—seems to indicate that the divisional road engineer fulfils rather an arbritrary role and that local opinion is not sufficiently taken into account. Frankly, I should have thought that in this matter the opinions of parents and ordinary citizens should be given the most careful consideration. In the face of the evidence which I shall produce, I do not think this treatment has been given to them.
I propose to concentrate on two crossings, although the council have drawn my attention to three. The one with which I do not propose to deal, except in passing, is the so-called Church Street crossing, not because I do not think it is important—I know how important the local council regard it—but because it does not lend itself so happily to the argument which I wish to put forward tonight. In all these questions there is a tendency to try to analyse the problem into whether it is a school problem or an ordinary pedestrian problem. This case is a combination of the two. I will deal, first of all, with the school problem.
It so happens that this intersection of these two trunk roads is within 300 to 400 yards of a very large catchment area for school children. As a matter of fact, in the near vicinity of this intersection there is the Lichfield Grammar School, the Friary School, the Secondary Modern School, St. Michael's School, St. Joseph's School, Christchurch School and certain smaller schools. If I might take Friary School, which happens to be at the immediate intersection I was talking about, this school has itself a large catchment area from the rural and mining areas in the district, and every day 300 children come in by bus and are decanted in the immediate vicinity of the school and where these two uncontrolled crossings were before they were abolished.
In addition to that 300, 60 children or so from Lichfield itself have to make the same crossings. The danger hours appear to be from 8.30 to 9.10 a.m. and from 3.45 to 5 p.m. in respect of all children, and in addition for the 60 Lichfield children from 12.10 to 2.20 p.m., when they go home for luncheon.
From the point of view of normal pedestrian traffic; apart from the schools which embody this traffic in child pedestrians, there is quite an important communications aspect. There has been recently organised opposite the school a new bus station, and about 300 yards away there is a second subsidiary bus station near the city railway station—and there is the city railway station itself. All these three communication services supply their quota of children. Furthermore, in St. John's Street—this may seem a rather small point, but from many points of view it is worthy of consideration—there is the most ancient establishment known as St. John's Hospital where old people are housed, and they have difficulties in crossing these roads which bear a burden of heavy traffic.
In my view, whatever the Parliamentary Secretary may decide, any crossings that may be arranged both on Priory Road and St. John's Street should be also aided in their effect by the provision of railings at the corners of the intersection—fenced railings to prevent children swinging underneath them and cutting across. This will be difficult unless he will examine the question of the ancient building at the corner of Bore Street and Bird Street, which, I think, is at present

used as a show room for an adjacent shop and which it seems to me might be considered for demolition.
By the side of this building and along Bird Street there is an extremely narrow footpath which will only permit one pedestrian—walking along two abreast is impossible. I took an opportunity a few days ago to stand near this particular entry into the intersection, and I saw pedestrians having to step into the roads with their backs to the oncoming traffic, and I saw one or two incidents which looked extremely dangerous. At this particular point it is my argument that railings should be provided and one building should be considered for demolition in order to give a greater view around the corner into Bore Street and wider accommodation for pedestrians.
There is another complication in connection with this important intersection. Coming from Tamworth in the direction of Rugeley, at this intersection there is what is known, I think, as an "infiltration" light, which permits traffic going in that direction to turn and go in a constant stream left along A.38—the Friary Road. Importance is lent to this particular point I am making because a member of the staff of the Friary School was herself knocked down at this point through obeying the traffic lights but being hit by a vehicle using the "infiltration" light.
I should like to emphasise that these two roads bear extremely heavy traffic. I do not know whether I am correct in saying, I think I am, that the weight of trucks along these roads has increased very considerably in the post-war period—and that it is an additional danger.
With regard to the argument of the Parliamentary Secretary in that part of the speech I quoted, about road patrols probably being the answer to all this, that does not conform with local opinion. I have described already the danger periods to which the pupils attending the Friary School are subjected. The head mistress of the school in a letter to me, and in talking about the timing of the intake and exit of the pupils, said:
This very wide spread of times makes the Road Patrol system unworkable as it would mean employing two men for four or five hours of the day each.
The Town Clerk, in a letter to me on the same point, said:


It is contended by the divisional road engineer that patrols for school children would be more justifiable at certain of these proposed crossings than zebra crossings, but my council contend that the extra zebra crossings would meet the need far better than having to waste manpower on adult patrols.
I am not quite sure that I agree with the remark "waste of manpower" because, if we could overnight produce these patrols, having trained them, and be able to pay for them, it might be a good argument that they should be employed. But we have yet to pass the legislation under which those patrols would be financed, the right people would have to be found, and they would have to be trained. I am deeply anxious that something should be done very quickly. My own view is that there is a very strong case for these crossings to be permitted.
May I add here that in respect of Friary Road, that is, A.38 up to the intersection, there is no speed limit on this road until it reaches the school gates. Having taken some trouble to examine what has been said in previous debates on pedestrian crossings—for instance, the debate when the regulations were placed before the House during the time of the previous Administration—I am somewhat perturbed that there has been some indication of undue Treasury interference in what is a technical problem.
I have heard that at the time these zebra crossings were first proposed, the then Minister of Transport, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Barnes) proposed, and was so advised to propose, that at least half of the then uncontrolled crossings should be made zebra crossings, and that this figure was cut down by two-thirds of the original figure on financial grounds. I do not know whether that is the case, but if it is, it seems to me highly improper that the Treasury should have interfered on financial grounds in this matter which affects the safety of children. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will comment upon that point.
I took the wise precaution of consulting the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents on this matter. I am advised that, when a year ago this cutting down of the proposed zebra crossings was first made, safety workers all over

the country thought those cuts were far too arbitrary and condemned them in the strongest possible terms. I can do no better than conclude by quoting from the letter I have received from the Head Mistress of the Friary School, because I believe that it depicts in excellent English—as might be expected from a lady of her academic qualifications—precisely what she feels, what the staff feel, and what parents feel. The House will bear with me if I make this rather lengthy quotation. She concludes by saying:
I do hope that you will be able to impress on the Minister of Transport the very real dangers to which the girls are subject and the likelihood that, sooner or later, there will be a serious or fatal accident similar to the one outside St. Michael's School, Lichfield, which led to action being taken there.
These crossings are in use not only or mainly by school children, and, therefore, should not be regarded as suitable for cover by road patrols. It is, however, because the danger to school children is the one which I feel most concern about, that I put that aspect of the matter to you.
I would ask you to consider, and to invite the Minister to consider, whether it is fair for parents, who send their children off at 8 o'clock each morning to travel by bus or train to school, and do not perhaps see them again until 5.30 in the evening, to have this constant anxiety about their safety at the road crossings.
Is it fair that girls of 16 or 17 should have the responsibility day by day of securing the safe crossing of the travel parties in their charge? Is it fair that I, myself, or the school staff, should have the responsibility of some 375 children on what is acknowledged to be a highly dangerous corner, and where owing to the wide spread of times involved it is not possible to maintain staff supervision or to employ road patrols?
I cannot add to that adequately, but I just leave these ideas in the Minister's mind. I believe that many parents today are developing an entirely understandable psychosis about the danger of their children going to and from school. I sympathise entirely with the problem which confronts the Minister, and nothing that I have said tonight must be construed as critical, except that I feel that possibly the role of the divisional road engineer needs re-examining. I hope that this particular case, which I admit is of very local interest, will receive the Minister's kind consideration and very urgent attention.

11.42 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Gurney Braithwaite): May I say at once that I am very glad indeed that the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) has taken this opportunity of raising this subject tonight? No topic could be more important—I think this was the preface to the hon. Member's own remarks—than the safety of children on the highway; and I assure him that we have given a great deal of thought to how best they can be protected, especially when they have to cross busy roads on their way to and from school.
I propose, first, to generalise on the main problem before coming to the local application which the hon. Member has put before the House. During the recent road safety debate on 20th June, I tried to explain what we are aiming at in the new policy of pedestrian crossings, which, as the House will remember, we inherited from the previous Administration. This is entirely a non-party issue.
I do not want to occupy time by repeating what I said on that occasion except to mention again that the removal of old crossings which were in unsuitable places is an essential feature of our policy, and that we are convinced that the reduction in numbers which has been made since last summer has played an important part in restoring respect and usefulness to the crossing system as a whole. Tonight, therefore, I am grateful for this opportunity to state very briefly our views on school crossings. I have tried to explain them in recent months to several right hon. and hon. Members who have approached me individually on the subject, but it will be useful if they are more widely known through the medium of this Adjournment discussion, brief as it is.
Many crossings of the old type were laid down opposite or near schools, with the object of helping the children to cross the road safely, and in many cases such crossings were seldom used by anybody except the children on their way to and from school. They therefore constitute good examples of the type of crossing which naturally ends by being disregarded by drivers.
That has two very undesirable results. Each disregarded crossing helps to

devalue the remainder, and, indeed, the idea behind the crossings. Secondly, of course, it becomes a danger rather than a safeguard for the few pedestrians who use it. It is for that reason that we are most anxious to get across to everyone who is interested in the problem the point that, while a crossing in the right place may be helpful and valuable, a crossing in the wrong place is worse than useless and can, indeed, be a positive danger. If it be true that crossings in the wrong places can be dangerous it is particularly important that we should avoid them at places where children cross. Zebra crossings, even in the best places, demand reasonable behaviour and careful judgment, especially on the part of pedestrians. Only too often we hear of pedestrians not exercising this careful judgment and of accidents or near accidents occurring.
I think that hon. Members will agree with me that if a child is told he has, priority on a zebra crossing he or she may too easily come to regard it as an absolutely safe place and it is too much to expect a child to gauge the moment when it is safe to step into the carriageway to cross a busy road. I say that in spite of all the excellent work which is being done in the schools and by the police to make children traffic conscious. But we cannot get away from the fact that their judgment is immature.
It is, therefore, wrong for local authorities and parents, or whoever may be concerned, to think that they have provided for children's safety in entrusting them—and I must use a phrase to which I think the hon. Gentleman took exception—to the purely legal protection offered by a zebra crossing. We are convinced—and we have gone into this very carefully—that where children have to cross busy roads on their way to and from school they should be under the control of a responsible, trained adult.
There are not sufficient police everywhere to go round for this purpose. For this reason we have been advocating the wider use of the traffic warden or adult patrol. They are provided at the moment by the Commissioner of Police in the Metropolitan Police District and by some local authorities in other parts of the country. Statements have been made in


the House recently on this subject, but it may not be out of place if I repeat that it has now been agreed that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland should make arrangements with the appropriate local authorities for the recruiting, training and organisation of school crossing patrols, with financial assistance from the Exchequer.
These, I am sure, are the lines on which this problem should be tackled, and, as I have said, many local authorities employ these patrols already. There is a misconception, I am afraid, in some people's minds, and I should very much like to remove it, that a zebra crossing is an inexpensive substitute for this form of protection. I am sure that this notion is wrong and that the removal of many crossings near schools, which may often have seemed strange to the local people, has been the right thing to do in the interest of the children themselves.

Mr. Harmar Nicholls: Is the Home Office to be made to pay for the school wardens?

Mr. Braithwaite: I said the Exchequer. Discussions are going on now with the local authorities. I should like, if the hon. Member will allow me, to deal with the questions of the hon. Member for Lichfield, whose Adjournment this is.
Coming now to the crossings near the Friary School, which the hon. Member asked me to consider, I wish first to examine the problem and then outline a remedy. I always think it is a pity if an hon. Member gets the Adjournment and goes away empty-handed. One of the crossings was opposite a school on the Exeter—Leeds trunk road and was within 60 yards of a light controlled junction. We have been informed it is also near a bus station. We have even examined that, too. Most of the passengers who use the buses wish to go to and from the centre of the city and they have to pass the traffic lights, where they could cross in reasonable safety. This is just the sort of place where an uncontrolled crossing is unnecessary and can prove dangerous. If one were provided vehicles would have to stop whenever a pedestrian was on the

crossing and the proper working of the traffic light signals might be affected.
It also seems to me most important that drivers shall not be asked to stop twice at points very close together. Experience shows that drivers may well prove intolerant of pedestrians using zebra crossings and preventing them crossing the lights before the green signal changes. Experience has shown that badly placed crossings may well be a cause of accidents by encouraging carelessness in drivers.
The other crossing was on a major road which joined the trunk road at the traffic lights, and was opposite the eastern entrance to the same school. It was also within 100 yards of the traffic lights. Here, again, a crossing would handicap the proper working of the signal crossing and might encourage careless driving. In neither of these cases would the children gain any greater measure of safety by the provision of an uncontrolled crossing. It is always safer to cross busy roads when traffic is brought to a standstill, as it is here by traffic light signals. I realise, however, that the layout of the junction and the filtration of traffic allowed by the signals does perhaps make it more awkward than need be for pedestrians to cross. We are, therefore, having the junction examined by the divisional road engineer, and I hope that it may be possible to modify the layout to make it more convenient.
I understand that the local authority are also worried about the length of time a paid patrol may be necessary. The answer may be that a paid patrol could deal with the busiest periods of coming and going or for the times when the youngest children are there. I would like to stress again that it is only for the reason that a child using an uncontrolled crossing would not have proper protection, and, indeed, might find it dangerous, that we cannot agree to provide them on these roads. If we can make the signal controlled crossing satisfactory for pedestrians that would be best, and an adult patrol may not be necessary at all if this corrective measure is taken.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to other crossings in the city where the local authority are dissatisfied with the present situation. I did give a reply to him on 19th May on this subject. But


I should not like this short debate to end with the hon. Member feeling that he and his constituency are suffering from excessive State control or rigid regimentation. The divisional road engineer is guide, philosopher and friend rather than an authoritarian in these matters. The Minister has, of course, an overriding duty and authority, but we are always loth to use it and would much

rather proceed in agreement with the local authority and police alike.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Seven Minutes to Twelve o'Clock.